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THE BEACON BIOGRAPHIES 



EDITED BY 

M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE 



SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 

BY 

JOHN TROWBRIDGE 



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SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 



JOHN TROWBRIDGE 




BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

MDCCCCI 






Copyright, ipoi 
By Small, Maynard iff Company 

(Incorporated) 



Entered at Stationers 9 Hall 



E LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Kecbved 

NOV. 29 1901 

COF^OIOHT BNTRV 

CLASS <VXXa No 

copy a 



5\ 



'\ 



^ 



George H. Ellis, Boston 



he photogravure used as a frontispiece 
his volume is from an engraving, by 
G. Jackman, of a photograph by Brady, 
m when Morse was forty-five years old. 
's reproduced by permission of D. Ap- 
on & Co. The present engraving is by 
n Andrew & Son, of Boston. 



PEEFACE. 



I invite the attention of the reader to the 
record of a man who spent the first half of 
his life as an artist and the last half as an 
electrician. The vast storehouse of Nature 
was opened to him, and he was given honours 
and gold. He changed the world more than 
Caesar or Napoleon. He toolc away the 
occupation of great merchants who went 
down to the sea in great ships. He bound 
together the states of this great continent 
with bands of iron. While an artist, no 
canvas seemed to him large enough upon 
which to express his ideas ; and, as an elec- 
trician, he was given the ivhole surface of 
the globe ichereon to inscribe his name. Is 
there not food for thought in the study of 
this life f The historian will find therein a 
stronger impulse to study the effect of science 
upon human affairs, and will be led to 
regard its influence more important and 
lasting, perchance, than that exerted by the 
greatest military hero. The electrician will 



viii PEEFACE 

wonder why a man who had not fully im- 
bibed even the electrical knowledge of his 
time, and who had no "knowledge of mathe- 
matics, should have been chosen to do this 
thing. The psychologist will find problems 
in this life in regard to the assimilation of 
ideas, the importance of suggestion, the 
value of initiative, and, in considering these, 
may perhaps decide whether he can be 
called a genius. The student of economics 
can find in the story of telegraph litigation 
a picture of the grasping men who adopt the 
principles of socialism in order to prey on 
the labors of an inventor under the pretence 
of public utility. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, October, 1901. 



CHEONOLOGY. 

1791 
April 27. Samuel Finley Breese Morse 
was born at Charlestown, Massachusetts. 

1801 
September. Entered Andover Academy. 

1807 
September. Entered Yale College. 

1811 
Tuly 13. Sailed for Europe to study 
oainting. 

1813 
Way. Contributed a picture of the 
lying Hercules to the Eoyal Academy 
Exhibition, London. 

1815 
lugust 21. Eeturned to America. 

1817 
January. Engaged to Miss Lucretia P. 
Yalker of Concord, "New Hampshire. 
Tune. Went to Washington to take out 



x CHEONOLOGT 

patents on a flexible piston pump, tin 

invention of his brothers and himself. 

1818 

October 1. Married Miss Lucretia P 
Walker. 

1823 

August 1. Took out a caveat for a ma 
chine for cutting marble. 

1825 
February 8. Death of his wife. 

1826 

January 15. Organised, in company witl 
others, the National Academy of Design 

1827 

May 3. Delivered president's address on 
the first anniversary of the Academy of 
Design. 

Winter. Eenewed his early interest in 
experiments in electricity. 

1829 
November 8. Sailed for Europe to per 
feet himself in his profession as ai 
artist. 



,n 



CHEONOLOGY xi 

1832 
October 1. Eeturned to America in the 
packet ship Sully, on which he first 
thought of the telegraph. 

1835 
Autumn. Was appointed Professor of the 
Literature of the Arts of Design in New 
York City University. 

1836 
January. Exhibited to Professor L. D. 
Gale models of his electric telegraph, 
including a relay. 

1837 
September 2. Showed his apparatus in 
successful operation to Alfred Yail. 
October 3. Applied for a caveat on the 
American Electro-magnetic Telegraph. 

1838 
January 6. First experiment with three 
miles of coiled copper wire stretched 
around a room of the factory in Speed- 
well, New Jersey. 
April 7. Applied for patent. 



xii CHEONOLOGY 

1838 {continued) 
May 16. Went to Europe to obtain 
foreign patents. 

1839 
April 15. Eeturned to America, having 
failed to obtain patents in England. 

1840 
May 24. First message sent over the 
trial line between Baltimore and Wash- 
ington. 

June 20. Issue of the first patent on the 
American Electro- magnetic Telegraph 
to Samuel F. B. Morse. 

1843 
March 3. Congress appropriated $30, 000 
to test the value of the Morse telegraph. 

1845 
August 6. Sailed for Europe to introduce 
his telegraph. 

1846 
April 11. Eeissue of Morse's patent. 
June. Yale College conferred the degree 
of LL.D, 



CHKOXOLOGY xiii 

1847 
Married Miss Sarah E. Griswold of 
Poughkeepsie, 2s~ew York. 

1848 
March 1. The Sultan of Turkey recog- 
nised by a decoration in diamonds the 
inventor. This was the first recognition 
by a foreign government. 
August 24. Claim of Morse as the orig- 
inal inventor of the telegraph brought 
into the courts. 

Decision of the Supreme bench in his 
favor. 

1855 
Great gold medal of Science and Art 
sent by Emperor of Austria. 

1856 
Order of the Chevalier of the Legion of 
Honour conferred by the Emperor of 
France. 

June 5. Sailed for Europe. 
October 2. Engaged on experiments with 
submarine cable between Newfoundland 
and Ireland. 



xiv CHRONOLOGY 

1856 {continued) 
October 9. Banquet to Mr. Morse in 
London. 

1858 
July 24. Sailed for Europe. 
September 1. Beceived testimonial of four 
hundred thousand francs from France, 
Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Pied- 
mont, Russia, Holy See, Sweden, Tus- 
cany, and Turkey. 

1866 
June. Last visit to Europe. 

1868 

December 30. Banquet in his honour in 

New York. 

1871 

June 10. Ceremonies at the erection of a 

statue to Morse in Central Park. 

1872 
April 2. Samuel Finley Breese Morse 
died at Poughkeepsie, New York. 



SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 



It is said that Keats, the poet, con- 
fessed that he had never felt the exhila- 
ration of a great success. The lives of 
most men are like the scoring in a musi- 
cal composition, which fills in the pe- 
riods between the entrances of the maes- 
tro : well done it may be, but often 
uninteresting. Samuel Finley Breese 
Morse was selected by the Ruler of the 
universe to give to the world a method 
of communication of thoughts and ideas 
which was destined to create a greater 
revolution than any military hero has 
caused among nations. Why was this 
man selected ? Why was he given this 
great success — a success which must 
have filled his soul with an exaltation 
for which poets have longed in vain ? 

It surely will be of interest even to 
the non-scientific reader to study briefly 
the career of one who realised Puck's 



2 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

boast — who could indeed put a girdle 
around the earth in forty minutes, and 
who seemed to be an incarnation of the 
Greek god whose disciples handed on 
swiftly the torch of progress as they ran. 
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born 
in Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 
1791. His ancestor on the father's side 
came from Wiltshire, England, in 1635, 
and settled in Newbury, Massachusetts. 
His descendants were of the typical 
stock which characterised the early peo- 
ple of New England, sturdy — most of 
them lived beyond their eightieth year 
— and religious. The father of the in- 
ventor was a clergyman of high stand- 
ing, a graduate of Yale College, and 
once a tutor there. He studied theology 
under Dr. Jonathan Edwards, the son of 
the great Edwards, and was settled over 
the First Congregational Church in 
Charlestown, April 30, 1789, the date 
of Washington's inauguration in New 
York as President of the United States. 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 3 

He was prominent all his life in affairs 
connected with the Congregational be- 
lief, and occupies a distinguished place 
in the annals of this sect as estab- 
Lisher of the religious paper, the Pano- 
plist, and as one of the founders of the 
Congregational strongholds — the Theo- 
logical Seminary at Andover, the Amer- 
ican Board of Foreign Missions, the 
American Bible Society, and the Ameri- 
can Tract Society. 

He is sometimes called the Father 
of American Geography, having pub- 
lished many school-books on this sub- 
ject. This progenitor also had, it is 
said, a leaning toward invention. He 
was a man of great energy and persist- 
ence, two of the essential qualities in 
a successful inventor ; and, in marking 
these qualities, we get an inkling of one 
of the causes of success of the son. It is 
said that Daniel Webster once spoke of 
him as " always thinking, always writ- 
ing, always talking, always acting. " 



4 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

Out of the loins of this sturdy Puritan 
came a new light into the world, which 
was destined by the quick interchange 
of ideas to modify profoundly New Eng- 
land theology. In the Eev. Jedediah 
Morse we see sturdy qualities wliich 
might lead to success in any of the pro- 
fessions ; but he never, apparently, be- 
came strongly possessed with an idea. 
He was not an imaginative man. From 
whom, then, did the son obtain his ar- 
tistic side and that combination of the 
faculty of conceiving forms impalpable 
to others, with the qualities which made 
Dr. Eliot say of the Eev. Jedediah, 
"What an astonishing impetus that 
man has" ? Let us see what manner of 
woman the mother was. 

She was of Scotch descent, her 
grandfather, Dr. Finley, being of Scotch 
parentage, but born in Ireland. He be- 
came president of Princeton College, and 
was also a distinguished Presbyterian 
clergyman. It was said that she pos- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 5 

sessed a judicial niind, which was in 
marked contrast to the sanguine and im- 
pulsive spirit of her husband. She was 
evidently a feminine balance wheel, 
one of those women of Scotch descent 
whom we have all known, — a woman 
with business qualities judiciously con- 
cealed by attractive feminine traits. 
One of her sons, in speaking of the grave 
debates at the house of his father over 
the much-mooted plan of the Middle- 
sex Canal — a project which strongly ap- 
pealed to the sanguine spirit of the Eev. 
Jedediah — relates this commendation 
j of the distinguished engineer, Loam mi 
Baldwin : "Mrs. Morse was present, not 
merely as a listener, but occasionally 
spoke ; and her words elicited from 
Baldwin the remark that Madam's con- 
versation and cup of tea removed moun- 
tains in the way of making the canal. " 
The pictures we get of this good mother 
— of eleven children — is that of a wise 
provider and economiser of a preacher's 



6 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

sparse living in those days. She stands J 
out from the records, a Copley portrait, 
with a shrewd, motherly face, undoubt- 
edly of Scotch lineament, set off by a 
sober snood and ample sleeves. A por- 
trait of her by her distinguished son 
represents her reading by candle-light. 
She was said to be fond of literature, 
and this portrait emphasises this love ; 
but where was the artistic tempera- 
ment? 

Of the eleven children of this woman, 
only three survived infancy. These 
were sons who were good citizens, noted 
as men of good parts. Sidney Morse 
was an inventor, and the author of a 
school geography which had a great 
circulation, and which many of us re- 
member to have thumbed in our youth. 
Through these brothers of Samuel Finley 
Breese Morse we see a strain of the same 
qualities which distinguished him, and 
which they received as a direct inheri- 
tance from the father. The imaginative 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 7 

and the artistic element was not de- 
veloped in any of them with the excep- 
tion of the subject of this sketch. The 
fates seemed to be propitious and to be 
preparing a career for this chosen of 
.men ; for, in the very year of Morse's 
birth, Galvani, like a high priest ob- 
serving the entrails and prognosticating 
the future, investigated the twitching 
.of a frog's leg when it was touched with 
a scalpel, and led Volta in 1800 to in- 
jvent the battery which was to be Morse's 
i servant. What legend in classical times 
j is more laden with omens in regard to 
I the birth of a hero ? Here is what lends 
jan uncommon interest to our study of 
i this man. Why was he selected to hand 
on the torch of progress — a man in 
[ a new world, untrained in science, far 
i from the great intellectual centres, Lon- 
j don, Berlin and Paris, new in a subject 
I in which there were such giants as Fara- 
! day and Gauss? We are reminded of 
j singular growths in the plant world. 



8 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

A seed escaping from overpowering I 
shade and falling on a suitable soil can j 
convert a desert reef into an island of 
delight. The American environment 
seems to have been especially fitted for j 
the reception of electrical ideas. There 
is something in electricity especially 
congenial to the spirit of the race. 

Dr. Belknap of Boston, writing to 
Postmaster-general Hazard, said : u Con- 
gratulate the Monmouth Judge [Mr. 
Breese, the grandfather] on the birth 
of a grandson. Next Sunday he is to be 
loaded with names, not quite so many as 
the Spanish ambassador who signed the 
treaty of peace of 1783, but only four ! 
As to the child, I saw him asleep, so 
can say nothing of his eye or his 
genius peeping through it. He may 
have the sagacity of a Jewish rabbi or 
the profundity of a Calvin or the sub- 
limity of a Homer for aught I know. 
But time will bring forth all things." 

At seven years of age Morse attended 






SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 9 

a school at Andover, Massachusetts, 
preparatory for Phillips Academy. In 
this latter school he was fitted for Tale 
College, which he entered in his fifteenth 
year. When a student, his letters to his 
parents indicate an interest in science, 
r and especially in electricity. The in- 
struction in physical science in those 
i days was very meagre. Jeremiah Day 
\ was then professor of natural philosophy 
! in Tale College. The learned professor 
| has given (with evident satisfaction) this 
( record of his lectures : — 

"In my lectures on Natural Philoso- 
\ phy the subject of electricity was spe- 
1 cially illustrated and experimented upon. 
Enfield's work was the text-book. 

"The terms of the twenty-first propo- 
sition of Book V. of ' Enfield's Philoso- 
I phy ? are these : ' If the circuit be in- 
| terrupted, the fluid will become visible, 
| and when it passes, it will leave an im- 
; pression upon any intermediate body.' 
"I lectured upon and illustrated the 



10 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

first two experiments propounded by th< 
twenty-first proposition, and I recollec 
the fact with certainty by memoranda 
now in my possession. The experiment!' 
referred to are in terms as follows : — 

" c Experiment 1. Let the fluid pass 
through a chain or through any metallic 
bodies placed at small distances from 
each other, the fluid in a dark room will 
be visible between the links of the chain 
or between the metallic bodies.' 

" 'Experiment 2. If the circuit be in- 
terrupted by several folds of paper, a 
perforation will be made through it, and 
each of the leaves will be protruded 
by the stroke from the middle to the 
outward leaves.' ?? 

Writing in 1867, Morse said: "The 
fact that the presence of electricity can 
be made visible in any desired part of 
the circuit was the crude seed which took 
root in my mind, and grew into form, 
and ripened into the invention of the 
telegraph. " 



SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 11 
In a letter home February 27, 1809, 
he writes : — 

"Mr. Day's lectures are very interest- 
ing. They are upon electricity. He 
has given us some very fine experiments. 
The whole class, taking hold of hands, 
form the circuit of communication, and 
we all received the shock apparently at 
the same moment. I never took an elec- 
tric shock before. It felt as if some 
person had struck me a slight blow across 
the arms." 

It is probable that there was greater 
scientific activity at that time in Tale 
College than in any other American col- 
ege. Benjamin Silliman was then pro- 
fessor of chemistry ; and the brilliant 
esearches of Sir Humphry Davy with 
he electric battery which led to the dis- 
overy of the metal potassium, naturally 
ittracted the attention of a brother 
hemist to electricity. 
Professor Silliman, in speaking of 
lorse's early interest in that subject, 



12 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

said : " S. F. B. Morse was an attendant 
on my lectures in the years 1808, 1809, 
and 1810. I delivered lectures on chem- 
istry and galvanic electricity. The bat- 
teries then in use were the pile of Volta, 
the battery of Cruikshank, and the 
Couronne des tasses, well known to the 
cultivators of that science. I always ex- 
hibited these batteries to my classes. 
They were dissected before them ; and 
their members and the arrangement of 
the parts, and the mode of exciting them, 
were always shown. " 

At the same time lectures were given 
at Harvard College on electricity by 
Professor Frisbie. These lectures were 
always referred to with great enthusiasm 
by those who heard them, and Professor 
Frisbie exists still as a great traditionary 
teacher. He also, doubtless, had modifi- 
cations of the Voltaic pile, Dr. Hare's 
deflagrator, which was simply a battery 
with large metallic plates, the invention 
of which seems a small matter to us now, 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 13 

but which excited great interest in the 
infancy of the subject. All the appara- 
tus on the subject of electricity in those 
days in Harvard College could be con- 
tained in a small cupboard, if we except 
a massive electrical machine, ordered for 
the college by Benjamin Franklin. I 
cannot help thinking that Morse was 
fortunate in attending Yale College, for 
there was no one in Harvard College at 
that time in physical science of the 
weight of Benjamin Silliman. Morse 
evidently got all there was to be had at 
that time on the subject of electricity. 
He acquired a smattering of chemistry, 
and speaks of studying optics, dialing, 
and Homer. It is interesting to speculate 
upon the future of young Morse if he had 
not been thrown at a formative period 
into an academic life where the latest 
discoveries in electricity were commented 
upon and the fundamental experiments 
in science repeated. 
In studying Morse's career in college 



14 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

the most prominent feature, after all, is 
not his love for electricity or invention. 
If lie had never invented the telegraph, 
I doubt whether his letters home on the 
subject of electricity would have been 
thought significant. The heat of litiga- 
tion over his patents in after years 
brought them to light, and invested 
them with interest. Many a boy has 
written from his school fuller accounts 
of his experiments in chemistry, and 
has ended by becoming a dry-goods 
merchant. No, Morse's love for elec- 
tricity was entirely subordinate to his 
love for painting. Perhaps, like Goethe, 
he mistook his vocation, and longed to 
excel in directions which were really 
paths of greatest resistance for him. 
This striving for excellence in the great 
art of painting has been a characteristic 
of inventors and mechanicians. I re- 
member that Alvan Clark, the maker 
of great telescopes, cut short his ex- 
planation of the processes by which he 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 15 

ground and tested his lenses, in order to 
show me the portraits he painted and 
to dwell lovingly upon the values and 
the chiaro-oscuro. A little encourage- 
ment, an imprimatur from the consti- 
tuted critics of art, would have changed 
his career from a discoverer of new 
worlds to a painter of the fleeting ghosts 
of men. Our thoughts, too, go back to 
the great Tuscan, Leonardo da Vinci, 
who was a renowned painter, and who 
also invented the wheelbarrow, together 
with many other devices. He too was 
fortunate in his environment. 

The letters from Morse's classmates 
dwell upon his taste for drawing and 
painting. He speaks in 1809 of em- 
ploying all his leisure time upon paint- 
ing. He took orders for profiles at one 
dollar a head and for miniatures on 
ivory at five dollars. In 1810 he writes 
to his parents on the eve of graduation : 

"I am now released from college, and 
am attending to painting. As to my 



16 SAMUEL F. B. MOBSE 
choice of a profession I still think I 
was made for a painter, and would be 
obliged to yon to make such arrange- 
ments with Mr. Allston for my studying 
with him as you shall think expedient. 
I should desire to study with him during 
the winter ; and, as he expects to return 
to England in the spring, I should ad- 
mire to be able to go with him. But 
of this we will talk when we meet at 
home." 

One is struck by the fact that his 
parents did not object to their son adopt- 
ing what was then considered a vis- 
ionary profession. The Eev. Jedediah 
Morse was a practical divine — a man 
of affairs in so far as a clergyman can 
be ; and he had given his son, at con- 
siderable cost, a liberal education, to 
fit him for the learned professions. We 
hear, however, of no remonstrance from 
the father or mother. His mother gives 
directions in regard to his costume at 
the coming Commencement, and his 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 17 
father permits him to be one of the 
managers at the Commencement ball. 
The winter after Morse's graduation was 
spent in Boston, where he attended a 
course of anatomical and surgical lect- 
ures under Dr. "Warren, evidently with 
the intention of fitting himself for the 
profession of an artist. He also made 
the acquaintance of Washington Allston, 
who was destined to influence greatly 
the artistic epoch of his life. One at 
the present day, with the multiplication 
of illustrated journals and periodicals, 
the great increase of art collections, and 
the opportunities for foreign travel, can- 
not realise the surroundings of an artis- 
tic young man in Boston in 1810. Even 
in 1850 I remember that I was taken, 
while a small boy, into a room in the 
Boston Athenaeum to see a great un- 
finished picture by Washington Allston, 
Belshazzar'* s Feast This, with a few 
other pictures by Allston and Copley, 
were all that a boy fond of art could 



18 SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 

see ; and it was considered an event to 
be taken to Boston, up Beacon Street, 
into the modest building dignified by 
the name of " Athengeum." Steam and 
the telegraph have been potent ele- 
ments in the change that has come to 
us. Washington Allston was a great 
name to conjure by in those days ; and 
the young Morse, aspirant for fame, 
evidently was stirred to the depths by 
his intercourse with the great man. 
There is little of this hero-worship 
to-day, and Morse's invention has much 
to do with the absence of it. His in- 
vention, however, probably has had less 
effect on the career that he began life 
with than on any other field of human 
effort. 

July 13, 1811, Morse sailed for Eu- 
rope on the vessel Lydia, in company 
with Washington Allston and his wife. 
The voyage occupied twenty-six days. 
There were premonitions of the War of 
1812 ; but Americans were apparently 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 19 
well received in England and subjected 
to no annoyances. Benjamin West was 
tlien at the height of his reputation ; and 
Morse, the young aspirant for artistic 
fame, was introduced to him by Wash- 
ington Allston. Truly, a distinguished 
audience and a distinguished introducer ! 
West was then in his seventy- fourth year. 
He had become, perhaps, the foremost 
painter of his time in England. A man 
of indefatigable industry, his paintings 
numbered more than six hundred ; and 
Morse's letters are full of admiration of 
his countryman and of desires of emula- 
tion. In after years he said to a friend : 
"I called upon Mr. West at his house in 
Newman Street one morning ; and, in 
conformity with the order given to his 
servant Eobert, always to admit Mr. 
Leslie and myself even if he was engaged 
in his private studies, I was shown into 
his studio. As I entered, a half-length 
portrait of George III. stood before me 
upon an easel, and Mr. West was sitting 



20 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
with his back toward me, copying from 
it upon canvas. My name having been 
mentioned to him, he did not turn, but, 
pointing with the pencil he had in his 
hand to the portrait from which he was 
copying, he said, — 

"'Do you see that picture, Mr. 
Morse ?' 

" 'Yes, sir/ I said. 'I perceive it is 
the portrait of the king. 7 

" ' Well/ said Mr. West, ' the king was 
sitting to me for that portrait when the 
box containing the American Declara- 
tion of Independence was handed to 
him. ? 

"'Indeed,' I answered; 'and what 
appeared to be the emotions of the king? 
What did he say ? ' 

"'Well, sir/ said Mr. West, 'he 
made a reply characteristic of the good- 
ness of his heart/ or words to that effect. 
' Well, if they can be happier under 
the government they have chosen than 
under mine, I shall be happy.' " 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 21 

The art life of Morse in London seems 
to have filled all his desires. An intimate 
friend was Leslie, the artist. He met 
> Wilberforce, Coleridge, and Bogers, and 
was in constant intercourse with Allston 
and West. He says in a letter to his 
parents, September 20, 1812 : "My pas- 
sion for my art is so firmly rooted that I 
<am confident no human power could de- 
stroy it. The more I study, the greater 
J think is its claim to the appellation of 
idivine ; and I never shall be able suf- 
ficiently to show my gratitude to my 
parents for enabling me to pursue that 
profession, without which, I am sure, I 
should be miserable. " A model in clay 
tof a Dying Hercules was highly com- 
mended at this time both by Allston 
and West, and their praise excited this 
.artistic exuberance of feeling. 

Electricity in later life was destined 
Jto supplant art and to pervade his whole 
being, while the colours dried on his 
palette and lost their bloom. Surely 



22 SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 

this man seemed bound irrevocably to 
art ; and there was something extremely 
mysterious in the influences which were 
destined in middle life to give him an 
other career, totally different from that 
which he entered upon in enthusiastic 
youth. During the four or five years oi 
his artist apprenticeship in London there 
is not an inkling of a turn for science, 
We do not hear of any visits to the Boyalj 
Institution, where Sir Humphry Davy) I 
had made his brilliant discoveries by thej e 
aid of the electrical current. There was| i 
no effort to become acquainted with the! io 
men prominent in electrical science* 
Art engrossed all his tastes and faculties. 
She was his mistress, whom he one day 
was destined to leave. This complete \ 
absence of interest in science during thosej 
years in London, the centre of science in 
those days, is remarkable. 

He was in London during the War of! 
1812 and during the War of the Allies, 
which culminated in the battle of Water- 



L 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 23 

oo. His letters home give an interesting 
picture of those stirring times. He re- 
marks in 1813 that the expenses of his first 
fear were two hundred pounds, and he 
lopes that the same sum will carry him 
through a second. He was obliged to deny 
oiimself every luxury. His breakfast was 
oread and butter and two cups of coffee ; 
ais dinner, one kind of meat with po- 
tatoes — warm twice a week, the rest of 
Le week cold ; his tea, bread and but- 
r, with two cups of tea. A pound at 
:hat time went no farther than a dollar 
an America. His painting materials 
were very expensive. England was at 
ewar with America, and there were no 
;i^uick steamship lines to bring beef and 
Ibreadstuffs from the western continent. 
London was almost archaic in its methods 
fof transportation. A curious picture of 
this is presented in a note of invitation 
ito young Morse from a Mr. Zachary 
Macaulay: "Mr. M.'s house is five 
idoors beyond the Plough, at the entrance 



24 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
to Clapham Common. A coach goes 
daily to Clapham from the Ship at Char- 
ing Cross, at a quarter-past three ; and 
several leave Grace Church Street in the 
City every day at four. The distance 
from London Bridge to Mr. Macaulay's 
house is about four miles. " 

The method of transportation in the 
city was by means of miserable hackney 
coaches with straw in the bottom and 
by cabs painted yellow, with drivers 
on little boxes at the side. These, how- 
ever, were soon superseded by four- 
wheelers and the hansom. Still, London 
was then, as it is now, the centre of the 
civilised world ; and Morse's residence 
there must have been a course of liberal 
education and a great stimulant of the 
faculties of observation. He saw the 
entree of Louis XVIII. into London in 
1814, with his splendid band of music 
of fifty pieces, his carriage drawn by 
eight Arabian cream-coloured horses, 
the king a corpulent little man, with i 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 25 

! round face, dark eyes, prominent feat- 
lures, " hands extended sometimes as if 
in adoration to heaven, at others as if 
blessing the people." He saw the great 
Emperor Alexander and Marshal Blii- 
cher, "a veteran-looking soldier, a 
very fine head, monstrous moustaches." 
Meanwhile he was making progress in 
r his art. He painted a picture of the 
I Dying Hercules of great size, which was 
exhibited in the Eoyal Academy at 
Somerset House. The London Globe, 
May 14, 1813, has this notice: "The 
great feature in this exhibition is that 
it presents several works of very high 
merit by artists with whose perform- 
ranees, and even with whose names, we 
were hitherto unacquainted. At the 
head of this class are Messrs. Monro and 
Morse." A plaster model of this figure 
3 was sent to the Society of Arts, and 
] received a gold medal. The picture re- 
ceived much praise ; and a critic in the 
| British press, May 4, 1813, placed it 



26 SAMUEL F. B. MOBSE 
among the nine best paintings in a gal- 
lery which contained pictures by Turner, 
Northcote, Lawrence, and Wilkie. 

The first years of enthusiasm in the 
pursuit of his art were delightful. He 
had made influential friends, he was at 
the centre of the universe, and the times 
were stirring. As the term of his resi- 
dence and apprenticeship drew to a 
close, he was naturally desirous of earn- 
ing something ; and he set out for Bristol, 
where he had been led to think he might 
obtain commissions. His experience 
there is significant; for he received, in the 
old slave port and thoroughly commer- 
cial town of the west of England, the 
first dampening of his artistic enthusi- 
asm. This discouragement, followed by 
others when he returned to America, had 
much to do with the turning of his 
attention to invention. He had received 
some pressing letters from a Mr. Visscher 
to visit Bristol to reap a promised har- 
vest of sitters. This quondam friend was 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 27 

reputed to be worth a hundred thousand 
pounds, and liked to play the role of a 
Maecenas without the necessary gesture 
of putting his hand in his pocket, 
Morse had with him some picture frames 
which pleased Visscher's fancy, and the 
latter desired the artist to paint some 
pictures to fill them. Accordingly 
Morse spent three months time in execut- 
ing what he believed was a commission. 
When the pictures were finished, Visscher 
was pleased with them, but declined to 
take them, saying that he already had 
more pictures than he knew what to do 
with. Sot a single commission was re- 
ceived in Bristol. Washington Allston 

' was with Morse on this unsuccessful trip. 
He too received no encouragement ; and 
the two artists, impoverished in purse 
and spirit, returned to London. A germ 

! of discontent at the world 7 s treatment of 
artists must have been implanted at that 
time in Morse's breast. It was destined 

j to grow on his return to America, and 



28 SAMUEL P. B. MOESE 
nothing short of the possession of great 
genius in art could have stifled it. The 
faculty of invention was stronger than 
that of art, and it was lying dormant. 
If "Washington Allston was unsuccessful, 
what hope could there be for Morse? 
The Fates were spinning iron cobwebs 
for him, bands which were destined in 
time to encircle the world, and to hold 
treasures such as he did not dream of in 
his wildest flight of imagination. He 
writes thus to his parents in the spring, 
before his return to America : — 

" I live on as plain food, and as little, 
as is for my health. Less and plainer 
would make me ill, for I have given it 
a fair experiment. As for clothes, I 
have been decent, and that is all. If 
I visited a great deal, this would be a 
heavy expense ; but the less I go out, the 
less need I care for clothes, except for 
cleanliness. My only heavy expenses 
are colours, canvas, frames, etc. j and 
these are heavy. " 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 29 
i I have sometimes thought that history- 
could be written on a new plan. In- 
.; stead of dwelling upon the doings of the 
puppets of the time during which young 
U Morse spent his apprenticeship in Lon- 
: don — Bliicher, the Czar, Napoleon — it 
i might be well to pick out the men who 
c were destined to affect permanently the 
I face of the globe. When Napoleon was 
£ the principal figure on the world's stage, 
s about to end a strenuous life, which 
J resulted in consolidating Germany and 
leading to the subsequent disaster at 
j Sedan, the inventor of the telegraph, 
i which was destined to bind together the 
i remote States of California and Massa- 
1 chusetts in one great confederacy of 
civilisation, was unknown in London. 
i There too was young Faraday, whose 
\ researches on electricity were destined to 
1 light the cities of the world and revolu- 
i tionise methods of travel ; and greater 
I factors in changing the face of the world 
j were there also, James Watt and Eob- 



30 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

ert Stevenson. These men, in this new 
plan of writing history, were the real 
actors behind the scenes. The others 
strutted a little day, and caused some 
stains of blood. The development of 
the world is due to science ; and this 
development, properly speaking, traced 
throughout its economic and even its 
spiritual aspect, should be the true func- 
tion of history rather than the relation 
of acts of prowess and schemes of futile 
diplomacy. But I fear such histories 
would find few readers ; for Pope's epi- 
gram, "The proper study of mankind 
is man," seems to be still considered an 
expression of wisdom. 

It is probable that the unsettled state 
of the continent and the state of his 
finances prevented Morse from studying 
out of England. He apparently did 
not visit Eome or Venice ; and there is 
no reference to any pictures save those 
of Benjamin West, Washington Allston, 
and others of the English school of por- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 31 

:rait and historical painters. Travel at 
ihat time was a serious matter, and there 
was an excuse for the provincialism of 
English art. Steam has had its influ- 
ence on painting. It may not have been 
,1 beneficent one, but it has been potent. 
I During the last year of Morse's resi- 
dence in England, 1815, Napoleon had 
returned from Elba. Louis XVIII. had 
f igain fled from the capital — doubtless 
with chubby hands extended to heaven 
-and Bliicher was retwisting that heavy 
moustache. On June 18, 1815, the battle 
3f Waterloo was fought; and the news 
lid not reach London for two days. 
Morse's telegraph would have sent it in 
a few seconds. The young painter's ac- 
count of the reception of the news of 
the entrance of the allied armies into 
(Paris is interesting. 

" As I passed through Hyde Park on 
my way to Kensington Grove, I observed 
great crowds had gathered, and rumours 
were rife that the allied armies had en- 



32 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

tered Paris, that Napoleon was a pris- 
oner, and that the war was virtually at 
an end. . . . On entering the drawing- 
room at Mr. Wilberforce's, I found the 
company, consisting of Mr. Thornton, 
Mr. Macaulay, Mr. Grant, the father 
and his two sons Eobert and Charles, and 
Eobert Owen of Lanark, in quite ex- 
cited conversation respecting the ru- 
mours that prevailed. Mr. Wilberforce 
expatiated largely on the prospects of a 
universal peace in consequence of the 
probable overthrow of Napoleon. ... I 
sat near a window which looked out in 
the direction of the distant park. Pres- 
ently a flash and a distant dull report of 
a gun attracted my attention, but was 
unnoticed by the rest of the company. 
Presently another flash and report as- 
sured me that the park guns were firing, 
and at once I called Mr. Wilberforce' s 
attention to the fact. Eunning to the 
window, he threw it up in time to see 
the next flash and hear the next report. 



SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 33 
Clasping his hands in silence, with the 
tears rolling down his cheeks, he stood 
for a few moments perfectly absorbed in 
thought, and, before uttering a word, 
embraced his wife and daughter, and 
shook hands with every one in the 
1 room." 

Beside Wilberforce the reformer, stood 
at that moment a man whose invention 
was destined to have a greater influence 
on the abolition of slavery than the voice 
of even the great English champion. It 
was destined to revolutionise the conduct 
of wars, to make impossible another 
secret passage of the Alps by a Napoleon, 
and to render nugatory forced marches 
over wide extent of country. How 
much it was destined to nip in the bud 
future military heroes we can best judge 
by considering what it might have pre- 
vented in the career of Napoleon. 



II. 

August 21, 1815, Morse returned to 
America to practise his profession. He 
set up a studio in Boston. His picture, 
The Judgment of Jupiter, was on ex- 
hibition, and, being the production of 
the pupil of Allston and West, attracted 
much attention. But the young artist 
found little to do. His picture was not 
bought, and he had no orders for new 
ones. The Bristol experience seemed 
to be repeated, and the inventive spirit 
within him asserted itself. If success 
was denied in one direction, it might be 
obtained in another. The art in him 
was destined to receive severe blows; 
but what a future was to be given to the 
vanquished ! He invented, together 
with his brother, Sidney E. Morse, dur- 
ing the winter of 1816, an improvement 
in a pump for a fire-engine. A patent 
was secured, and the inventors had great 
hopes for a while. In a notice of it we 



SAMUEL P. B. MOKSE 35 
find that four men could work it with, 
ease and deliver three hundred and sixty 
gallons in one minute. Eli Whitney, 
the inventor of the cotton-gin, said of it : 
" Having examined the model of a fire- 
engine invented by Mr. Morse, with 
pistons of a new construction, I am of 
opinion that an engine may be made 
on that principle (being more simple 
and much less expensive) which would 
have a preference to those in common 
use." 

For several years Morse endeavoured 
to bring his invention into use, and had 
his first experience in this arduous and 
vexatious work. It was destined to be a 
failure. 

During the autumn of 1816 and the 
winter of 1816-17 he became an itiner- 
ant artist, and painted portraits at fif- 
teen dollars a head in several towns in 
New Hampshire and Vermont. At Con- 
cord, New Hampshire, he met with con- 
siderable success, and wrote to his par- 



36 SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 
ents that lie believed that lie could make 
an independent fortune in a few years if 
he devoted himself exclusively to por- 
trait painting, so great was the desire 
of his countrymen to have their portraits 
painted. In Concord that winter he 
met Miss Lucretia P. Walker, whom he 
afterward married. Their engagement, 
in 1817, made it all the more obligatory 
upon him to make a success in his art ; 
but the field of invention seemed the 
quicker way to a competence, and much 
of his time was taken up in endeavour- 
ing to interest people in his pump. Men 
ran to fires in those days with antiquated 
engines, which were worked by hand 
racks ; and the streams of water which 
they threw were ridiculously inadequate. 
Morse's pump could deliver a large 
stream, and he had great hopes that 
many cities and towns would buy his 
invention. The town of Concord, New 
Hampshire, bought one; and the New 
Hampshire Patriot of April 14, 1818, 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 37 
spoke well of it. But other towns did 
not follow the example of Concord ; and 
in 1818 he writes to his parents: "The 
machine business (between ourselves) I 
am heartily sick of. It yields much 
vexation, labour, and expense, and no 
profit. Tet I will not abandon it. I 
will do as well as I can with it ; but I 
will make it subservient to my painting, 
as I am sure of a support, and even in- 
dependence, if I pursue it diligently, 
and I am sure I am disposed to do it." 
If he had been seized with the idea of a 
telegraph at that time, the idea would 
have been vanquished also by the genius 
of painting j for the time was not ripe. 
Henry had not begun his researches, and 
even the exaltation of spirits of the en- 
gagement to an attractive woman could 
not hasten the appointed time. The 
man's spirit must be chastened by years 
of trial. Others must work for this ap- 
pointed high priest of electricity. 
While the affair of the pump was 



38 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
pushed by his brother, Morse set out 
for Charleston, South Carolina, on a 
painting tour. His uncle, Dr. Finley, 
introduced him in the southern city, 
sat for his portrait, and thus opened 
the way to a greater success than had 
been previously obtained. Many por- 
traits were painted at sixty dollars a 
head. He could not fill his orders, and 
visions of a happy future filled his let- 
ters to the young woman who was wait- 
ing for him at the North. In May, 
1818, he returned to Boston, having 
painted fifty-three portraits and taken 
orders for nine others which were to be 
completed. In the autumn of that year 
he was married, and set out on a bridal 
tour with horse and gig. His account 
of this tour is an interesting picture of 
the times when methods of communica- 
tion were primitive. The roads were 
bad, and so were the taverns at the end 
of the day J s j ourney. The happy couple 
reached Amherst after a jolting trip, 



SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 39 

continued their journey through. Wilton 
to Sew Ipswich, and, having found that 
there were many cross-roads on the way 
to IsTorthampton, which they intended 
to reach, and no taverns, they re- 
turned* with a worn-out horse to Con- 
cord. Early in November the young 
married couple embarked on a sailing 
vessel for Charleston, to work out the 
lode previously opened. Morse found 
that several other artists, attracted by 
his success, had set up their easels in 
that city. And even a waiter in one of 
the hotels had discovered that he too 
was an artist. The field, however, was 
not entirely worked out; and Morse 
was soon fully occupied. In a letter to 
"Washington Allston, full of high spirits, 
he says that he is painting from morn- 
ing to night, and feels that in a few 
years, at the rate he is progressing, he 
will be independent of public patronage. 
He states that he feels as much enthusi- 
asm as ever for his art, and loves it more 



40 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

and more. He asks the great painter's 
opinion on the following point : — 

"I have been using a compound, or 
rather mixture, in flesh, on which I 
wish your opinion. Yellow ochre has 
heretofore been the best yellow I could 
use, but it always appeared to me to 
want brilliancy. Chrome yellow, on 
the contrary, is too bright, or eggy; 
but these two I have mixed half and 
half, and find it excellent flesh yellow. 
I find this mixture also excellent in the 
shadows of white drapery and in re- 
flected lights, when properly tempered 
with blue and red. A very strong tint 
of this yellow, laid on boldly in a 
shadow, gives a clearness and liquidness 
to it which no other yellow that I 
have used can give, and gives a warmth 
and glow to the picture, without being 
hot. I should like to know the result 
of your experiment with it." Here 
was invention in the art of colour. 
This extract, too, shows that he was 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 41 

working hard at what lie considered 
his life's work, bending all his thoughts 
toward painting, and striving for excel- 
lence in it. His interest in art was also 
I shown by his activity in establishing, 
j with others, the South Carolina Aead- 
I emy of Fine Arts, which, however, soon 
i died a natural death. 

In the winter of 1821, on his return to 
] the North, reaching out evidently for 
greater things, he made studies for an 
| immense picture of the House of Bepre- 
; sentatives at "Washington, with por- 
, traits of each of the members. He ob- 
j tained the use of one of the rooms in the 
Capitol, and often spent sixteen hours 
a day on his work. The canvas was 
, eleven feet by seven and a half, and 
there were eighty portraits. He real- 
i ised nothing from this arduous under- 
taking. "When the picture was placed 
on exhibition, the public did not go 
to see it ; and it was finally sold to 
an Englishman, who took it to London. 



42 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

It afterward was sent to New York, 
where it was found in 1847 by a friend 
of the artist, nailed against a board 
partition in the third story of a down- 
town store, covered with dirt and dust. 
It became finally the property of Daniel 
Huntington. Washington Allston once 
said of it to Morse, "It is a magnificent 
picture. " The elder painter evidently 
had a love for his pupil, and was in- 
clined to regard him more highly than 
the world did. We often find men of 
genius holding their critical faculty in 
abeyance and praising without stint 
men whose personality pleases them. 
Having failed in his ambitious venture 
and receiving no orders for great his- 
torical or allegorical pictures, Morse 
again became an itinerant artist, this 
time in upper K*ew York State. Again, 
with failure to achieve his highest ideals 
in art, his mind turned to invention, 
which is said to be the resort of all 
unsuccessful Americans at some period 






SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 43 
of their lives. He devised a machine 
this time for cutting marble and pro- 
ducing copies of works of sculpture. 
Again his hopes ran high, and he wrote 
affectionate letters to his wife, expressing 
the earnest desire that fortune would 
e enable him to give up his peripatetic 
j life in search of sitters, and allow him 
to settle down in peace and comfort 
with his family about him. This in- 
vention came to nothing. It was said 
to be mechanically successful, but the 
| world did not want it. While Morse 
I was endeavouring to find occupation in 
Albany, Joseph Henry, a teacher in 
an academy there, was occupied in re- 
- searches which were destined to make 
? his name famous, and, while contribute 
j ing nothing to his own purse, gave 
! Morse both a name and a fortune. 

The days in Albany were full of dis- 
couragement ; and, after a summer spent 
i there, he returned to New Haven for a 
I brief visit to his family. He had come 



44 SAMUEL F. B. MOBSE 

to the conclusion to settle in New York, 
and make the struggle of his life in 
a metropolis. There were to be no 
more back districts, no more itinerancy, 
for him. Like hundreds of others, he 
sought a great city, and, like hundreds 
of others, came near being merged in 
the mass and finally thrown out of the 
maelstrom, worn and stranded. The 
pictures presented by his letters to his 
faithful wife, waiting for the ship to 
come in — alas ! she was destined never 
to see it — are pathetic. He obtained a 
room at two dollars and twenty-five cents 
a week, and hired a studio on Broadway, 
opposite Trinity churchyard. He wrote 
that there were many artists, all poor and 
complaining. New York seemed given 
wholly to commerce. Money-making 
then was the chief end of man. He was 
reduced to great straits. At a reception 
a sneak thief stole his hat ; and he was 
obliged to pay four dollars for a new 
one, which broke his last five dollar bill. 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 45 
He had been five weeks in New York, 
his board bill amounted to thirty-three 
dollars, and he had nothing in his pocket. 
He had advertised and visited and hinted 
and pleaded, but without success. The 
marble- cutting machine, too, contributed 
nothing. Life seemed as hard as the 
c stone which he sought to fashion. In 
, despair the artist clutched at a prospect 
. of going to Mexico as an attache of a 
legation which was in contemplation. 
J He was to have the bitter experience of 
5 u waiting on princes, ?? or sitting at the 
I politician's door, which in America 
i amount to the same thing. He actually 
l set out for Washington to join the com- 
mission, only to find that it had been 
, abandoned ; and he returned to his fam- 
ily in New Haven. There was nothing 
to do but paint portraits ; and he spent 
the summer of 1824 in Concord, Ports- 
mouth, and Portland, returning in the 
autumn to New York. The clouds began 
to lighten that winter. He had made 



46 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 
many friends, who were exerting them- 
selves in his behalf. The corporation 
of the city gave him a commission to 
paint General Lafayette, who was then 
on a visit to America. The price would 
probably be seven hundred dollars, per- 
haps a thousand. Among the competi- 
tors for this prize were Vanderlyn, Sully, 
Peale, Jarvis, Waldo, Inman, Ingham, 
and others. In his letter to his wife he 
says : — 

"Events are not under our own con- 
trol. When I consider how wonderfully 
things are working for the promotion of 
the great and long-desired event — that 
of being constantly with my dear family 
— all unpleasant feelings are absorbed 
in this joyful anticipation ; and I look 
forward to the spring of the year with 
delightful prospects of seeing my dear 
family permanently settled with me in 
our own hired house here. There are 
more encouraging prospects than I can 
trust to paper at present, which must be 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 47 
left for your private ear, and which in 
magnitude are far more valuable than 
any encouragement yet made known to 

* you. Let us look with thankful hearts 
to the Giver of all these blessings. " 

The day of success, however, was still 
far distant ; and his wife was destined 
never to see it. His letters describe the 
sittings of Lafayette : — 

"The general is very agreeable. He 
introduced me to his son, saying : ' This 

• is Mr. Morse, the painter. He has come 
to Washington to take the topography 
of my face.' " The reflections of the ar- 

i tist while he painted Lafayette were pro- 
found. He was before the man who 
stood for freedom, who suffered in the 
dungeon of Olmiitz, who gave his time 
and fortune to the cause of America — 
the friend of Washington ! 

The final sitting was interrupted by 
the news of the death of Mrs. Morse, at 
the age of twenty-five. This was the 

1 great calamity of those years of strug- 



48 SAMUEL P. B. MOESE 
gle, and for a time the artist gave him- 
self up to despondency. She had been 
a very help in time of trouble, and all 
his visions of success had her in them 
as the partaker. The letter of the father 
of Morse, full of condolence and sympa- 
thy, illustrates the character of the old 
divine. It was as tender as that of a 
woman and, withal, full of hope. This 
father had sacrificed himself for his 
son, giving him the best education that 
America then afforded, supporting him 
in Europe out of the scanty income of a 
preacher of the gospel, entering into all 
his hopes and aspirations, and sympa- 
thising with him in adversity. 

The Eev. Jedediah Morse is an exem- 
plar, and must not be forgotten when we 
think of the qualities of patient indus- 
try, indomitable will, alertness of per- 
ception, and Christian character. In 
the cemetery at New Haven there is a 
long epitaph to Lucretia Pickering, wife 
of Samuel F. B. Morse, written by Pro- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOBSE 49 
fessor Benjamin Sillinian. She, like her 
husband, evidently had many qualities 
which made friends. 

After the death of his wife, Morse re- 
sumed his artistic career in New York. 
He was active in the formation of the 
National Academy of Design, and be- 
came its president. 

The history of the academy is told by 
Thomas S. Cummings, late professor of 
jj the arts of design in New York Uni- 
j versity, in his Historic Annals of the 
National Academy of Design; and we 
( find therein an interesting recital of the 
i struggles of artists to obtain a proper 
recognition oi heir noble guild and 
I adequate inst: in art. In this 

J treatise, too, can be found specimens of 
, Morse's facilLj with the pen. It con- 
j tains his address to the students at the 
j end of the first academic season, in 1826, 
s and his discourse on " Academies of 
| Art," delivered in the chapel of Colum- 
bia College in 1827. These addresses 



50 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
are full of the spirit of devotion to art, 
and are the product of a man of liberal 
training. There is no evidence of that 
narrowness which sometimes is notice- 
able in the utterances of inventors. 
During four years after his wife's death, 
from 1825 to 1829, he continued his life 
in New York, meeting with considera- 
ble success. It was said that his studio 
was crowded with works in progress, 
and that he was compelled to turn away 
would-be sitters. In 1829 he deter- 
mined to visit the continent of Europe, 
where he had never been. This deter- 
mination shows the late beginning of 
art education ir> Am a. It had be- 
come essential that resident of the 
National Academy of Design should 
study in Italy. Accordingly, eighteen 
years after his first visit to England 
he set sail again for Liverpool, taking 
several thousand dollars' worth of com- 
missions for copies of the great masters. 
None of these commissions exceeded 



SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 51 
five hundred dollars, and most of them 
were not over one hundred dollars. 
Morse was then thirty-eight years of 
age, and his first letters were fall of the 
enthusiasm of youth. They show powers 
of observation and a remarkable tolera- 
tion in one brought up in the rigid 
school of New England theology. He 
went by stage from Liverpool to Lon- 
don, and it is interesting to notice how 
little the salient characteristics of the 
people and the landscape have changed 
since the November of 1829. He notes : 
"The spires and towers of some ancient 
village church rose out of the leafless 
trees, beautifully simple in their forms, 
and sometimes clothed to the very tops 
with the evergreen ivy. . . . The whole 
appearance of the villages was neat and 
venerable, like some aged matron, who, 
with all her wrinkles, her stooping form, 
and gray locks, preserves the dignity of 
cleanliness in her ancient but becoming 
costume. " 



52 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

In London lie met his old friend, 
Leslie the artist ; and he was introduced 
to the literary and artistic circles of the 
metropolis. He breakfasted with Sam- 
uel Bogers, the author of Pleasures of 
Memory, and visited Turner, the cele- 
brated painter. Washington Irving was 
then secretary of legation, and at the 
beginning of his fame. Morse, however, 
did not linger long in London, which at 
that time of the year was enveloped in 
fog and smoke. On November 22 he 
pursued his way to Paris. The Louvre 
was the first place he visited, and the 
sensation was evidently too much for 
words. He speaks of the grand gallery 
of pictures, the long hall, "the end of 
which, from the opposite end, is scarcely 
visible, but is lost in the mist of dis- 
tance. " In Paris he saw Lafayette, 
who greeted him with great cordiality, 
and invited him to his soiree, where he 
met Benjamin Constant, "one of the 
most distinguished of the liberal party 



SAMUEL F. B. MOBSE 53 
in France. " The stay in Paris was 
short ; for Eome was his ultimate des- 
tination, and the Louvre was to be 
studied on his return. The route to 
Eome was through Lyons, Avignon, 
Marseilles, and along the Cornice road 
to Genoa, then to Pisa, to Florence, and 
to the Celestial City. He began to work 
immediately upon a copy of Baphael's 
School of Athens in the Vatican, and 
his letters are full of the great cere- 
monies in St. Peter's. He saw the de- 
livery of the cardinals' hats. "The 
! pope's dress was a plain mitre of gold 
tissue, a rich garment of gold and crim- 
son, embroidered, a splendid clasp of 
gold, about six inches long by four 
wide, set with precious stones, upon his 
breast. He is very decrepit, limping or 
tottering along, has a defect in one eye, 
and his countenance has an expression 
of pain, especially as the new cardinals 
approached his toe. The cardinals fol- 
lowed the pope, two and two, with their 



54 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

train-bearers. " He describes the pro- 
cession of cardinals and the ceremony 
of kissing the toe of the bronze statue 
of Saint Peter's, the ceremonies of Palm 
Sunday, Holy Thursday, and the other 
great observances of the Church during 
Holy Week. The letters are those of 
a man who could have excelled with his 
pen ; and, as I have said, they breathe 
a singular toleration for the observances 
of a church which was especially re- 
pugnant to his Puritan ancestors. Our 
future electrician was not a narrow 
specialist : he could take broad views ; 
and he was therefore a companionable 
man whose society was sought. He 
met Horace Vernet the great painter. 
He became acquainted with Gibson and 
Wyett the sculptors. He painted the 
portrait of Thorwaldsen, and was inti- 
mate with Greenough, the American 
sculptor. Fenimore Cooper, too, seemed 
to have cherished an affection for him ; 
and they visited many places of interest 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 55 

together, and exchanged philosophical 
views on the strange phases of life they 
saw and the habits of the people they 
encountered. The life of an artist com- 
pletely absorbed Morse. His diaries are 
full of notes on pictures and methods 
of painting. Of a portrait of one of 
the Colonna family by Paul Veronese, 
called the Green Picture, he remarks : 
this portrait u proves that harmony 
may be produced in one colour : cur- 
tain in the background, hot green, mid- 
dle tint ; sleeves of the arms, cool ; 

i vest, which is in the mass of light, as 
well as the lights of the curtain, warm ; 

| white collar, which is the highest light, 
cool ! ! ?? The faculty of invention was 
at that time fully occupied with chiaro- 
oscuro and colour schemes. He observes 
in another picture of Paul Veronese that 
the highest light was cold ; the mass of 
light, warm ; the middle tint, cool ; the 
shadow, negative ; and the reflections, 
hot. He tested this theory by placing 



56 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
a white ball in a box lined with white. 
Balls of orange or of blue, so placed, 
give the same relative results. The 
high light of the ball is uniformly cold 
in comparison with the local colour of 
the ball. He observed in a picture by 
Eubens that it had a foxy tone, and 
found that the shadow, instead of 
being, according to his theory, negative, 
was hot. 

Allston once said to him, "I have 
painted that piece of drapery of every 
colour, and it will not harmonise with 
the rest of the picture." 

Morse replied: u According to my 
theory, it must be warm. Paint it flesh 
colour." 

1 1 What do you mean by your theory f ? 7 

On hearing Morse's explanation, Alls- 
ton said : — 

"It is so, it is in nature," and after- 
ward acknowledged to Morse, "Your 
theory has saved me many an hour's 
labour." 






SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 57 
Other men have invented schemes of 
colour. They have not, however, been 
great artists ; or, at least, it can be said 
that great painters have not given their 
schemes of colour to the world. Shall 
we, then, conclude that Morse had not the 
making of a great artist in him ? We 
certainly should be rash to reach this 
^conclusion from the fact of his theoris- 
ing on chromatics. But we believe that 
^here are other indications which point 
to the conclusion that he had not yet 
v found his true vocation. Nevertheless, 
Allston and West thought highly of his 
efforts ; and Horatio Greenough, the 
Sculptor, writing to him from Florence 
in 1832, said: "Let me beg of you to 
hang on to the conception of the depart- 
ure and return of Columbus. You are 
perfectly qualified to do honour to the 
country in such works, and should never 
give up the plan. Hang on like Colum- 
bus himself. You could make the first 
a grand picture in character and effect 



58 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
of composition. You would embody in 
the second all your scheme of colour and 
chiaro-oscuro. These subjects are yours, 
you are theirs. Have faith, and fear 
not." A critical notice of Morse's artis- 
tic career, prepared by Daniel Hunting- 
ton, president of the National Academy 
of Design, is contained in Prime's Life 
of Morse. The artist's theories of colour 
are dwelt upon, and the critic concludes : 
c t He had a true painter' s eye ; but he was 
hindered from reaching the feme his 
genius promised as a painter by various 
distractions, such as the early battles of 
the Academy of Design in its struggle 
for life, domestic afflictions, and, more 
than all, the engrossing cares of his in- 
vention. ... If his paintings, in the 
various fields of history, portrait, and 
landscape, could be brought together, it 
would be found that he deserved an hon- 
oured place among the foremost Ameri- 
can artists." 
In the autumn of 1831 Morse left 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 59 

Eome and went to Paris, where he 
occupied himself in making copies of 
pictures in the Louvre. He also under- 
took a large picture of the interior of 
the Louvre, including copies of the 
great pictures there. This attempt is 
curiously like the undertaking of the 
picture of the House of Eepresentatives. 
^Both attempts indicate great energy and 
industry, but hardly an artistic soul. 
His life in Paris was brightened by the 
/friendship of remarkable men. He saw 
>much of Lafayette, he received affection- 
ate letters from Fenimore Cooper, who 
.was then travelling in Germany, and he 
.became intimate with many noted people 
.who sympathised with the Poles, then 
struggling for freedom. He joined a 
committee which was organised to aid 
the Polish cause, and was instrumental, 
with others, in causing the liberation of 
Dr. S. GL Howe, who had been intrusted 
with twenty thousand francs for the 
>Poles, and had been thrown into prison 



60 SAMUEL P. B. MOESE 
in Berlin. Morse also became ac- 
quainted with. Humboldt, and it is said I 
that the two had long and congenial talks 
together in their strolls through the gal- 
leries. 

After three years of residence abroad 
Morse left England for his native land 
with his mind enriched by foreign travel 
and intercourse with great men. He 
fully intended to pursue his career as an 
artist, coming now to it with greater 
maturity of power and with a better 
acquaintance of the old masters. He 
was forty years of age, and seemed fixed 
in the career which he had chosen. 
There are few examples of men who, 
having reached this age, have achieved 
renown in an entirely new field of effort. 
While he, however, was working in his 
art, completely absorbed apparently by 
it, other men were getting ready his 
implements for his new craft. Joseph 
Henry, at Albany, was making experi- 
ments with magnets and discovering 



/ 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 61 

he conditions which, were essential to 
Worse's subsequent invention. 



III. 

The idea of an electro-magnetic tele 
graph came to Morse in mid-ocean. He 
was a passenger on the packet ship Sully, 
Captain Pell, which left Havre Octobei 
1, 1832, for New York. Among the 
passengers was Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of 
Boston, who afterward disputed Morse's 
claim to the great invention. One daj 
at the dinner-table, conversation turnec 
upon recent investigations in electricity 
and Dr. Jackson seems to have been the 
principal speaker. He laid down the 
laws of electro-magnetism so far as theji 
were known at the time, and explained 
the method of increasing the force of a 
magnet by passing the electric current 
many times around a bar of soft iron, j 
Questions arose in regard to the velocity j 
of electricity and in regard to the dis- 
tance the strange influence could be 
transmitted. The speaker said that elec- 
tricity was transmitted instantaneously, j 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 63 
10 appreciable time having been observed 
>y Franklin between the instant of clos- 
ng the circuit and the appearance of 
he electric spark at a distance. 
• It is reported that Morse then said, 
'If the presence of electricity can be 
Wde visible in any part of the circuit, I 
ee no reason why intelligence may not 
>e transmitted instantaneously by elec- 
r icity . ? ? Dr. Jackson afterward claimed 
hat he then and there developed a plan 
or accomplishing this great end which 
vas substantially that which Morse after- 
ward used. Morse persistently refused 
o give Dr. Jackson any credit whatever 
or the suggestion. Dr. Jackson was a 
nan of varied information, and his 
fiends firmly believed that his fertile 
nind was capable of conceiving of the 
dea of an electro-magnetic telegraph. 
[t does not appear that he had a mechan- 
ical turn or that he was endowed with 
*reat persistence in carrying his brilliant 
deas to a practical conclusion. He also 



64 SAMUEL P. B. MOESE 
claimed the discovery of the use of ether. 
Here, too, he met a man of a practical 
turn, Morton, who tried the effect of 
ether on himself. In a recent conversa- 
tion with a distinguished physician, a 
contemporary of Jackson, I asked about 
the merit of Jackson's claim to the dis- 
covery of ether ; and the reply was : 
"Many of us — students of medicine at 
that time — were accustomed to sniff 
ether and experiment on its benumbing 
and soothing qualities. The wonder is 
that none of us thought of the simple ex- 
periment of pricking ourselves with a 
pin while under the temporary influence 
of ether. ? ? The successful inventor seems 
to be a man who, having conceived or 
received an idea, becomes thoroughly 
possessed by it and proceeds immediately 
to make models and try experiments. 
We shall never know how much Dr. 
Jackson suggested to Morse. All that is 
certainly known is this : he was a man 
capable of suggesting new ideas. In the 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 65 
litigation which arose in subsequent years 
the conversations on the packet ship 
Sully were repeated by various hearers, 
and all the circumstances connected with 
the birth of the invention were sifted. 
Morse submitted notes from his diary, 
showing arrangement of dots, lines, and 
spaces, which could be used as an alpha- 
bet. It was said, also, that he made a 
drawing of a printing instrument, prob- 
ably an arrangement by means of which 
a tape could be drawn automatically 
along to receive dots and lines from a rod 
of iron which was moved by an electro- 
magnet. All that Morse had at that 
time was evidently the strong belief that 
the transmission of intelligence by elec- 
tricity could be accomplished by suitable 
mechanical contrivances — this, together 
with a scheme for an alphabet. Other 
men had had a similar idea, and codes 
of signals had already been devised. 
Morse's ideas at that time, however, 
would not have advanced the subject, 



66 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
for he did not know then of the re- 
searches of Joseph Henry ; and without 
the use of the latter ? s intensifying magnet 
and quantity magnet, and the idea of 
the relay, the alphabet was only a code 
such as a man of ordinary powers could 
have conceived. The voyage of the 
Sully j it seems to me, simply marks the 
epoch when the idea possessed Morse's 
soul, and when the Yankee's practical 
turn for the adaptation of means to ends 
was aroused. He had the faculty of 
seeing the value of corner lots when 
other men were lost in contemplation of 
the surrounding scenery. 

Let us consider, however, what was his 
scientific training. "While in Yale Col- 
lege, we have, seen that he attended the 
lectures of Professors Day and Silliman. 
I have said that little was known of 
electricity at that time, and the knowl- 
edge he gained contributed nothing more 
than an idea of the transmission of the 
mysterious influence along wires a com- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 67 

paratively short distance. While he 
was pursuing his art in New York, in 
1827, he attended the lectures of Pro- 
fessor James Freeman Dana before the 
New York Athenaeum, and saw the 
experiment of making a piece of soft 
iron magnetic by inserting it in a coil, or 
helix, of wire, the ends of which were 
connected to a battery. He also saw a 
horse-shoe electro-magnet, and probably 
witnessed the attraction of a piece of soft 

, iron by this magnet. The manuscript 
copies of these lectures are in the library 

i of Harvard University, and it is aston- 

I ishing how much the fact of increasing 
the magnetic effect by increasing the 
windings of wire on the spools of the 
horse-shoe magnet is dwelt upon. This 
fact is the material, indeed, for the en- 
tire course of lectures. Here we have 

, the entire training of Morse in the subject 
which was destined to turn him from 
the art he had so assiduously cultivated. 

! In the subject of electricity we have often 



68 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 
seen men spring suddenly into notice 
and grasp the prizes which the philoso- 
phers have overlooked. Edison once 
said to me, as if reflecting upon this psy- 
chological problem, " You are too much 
loaded up with mathematics. " Morse 
certainly did not carry a mathematical 
load, and electricity then was not the 
mathematical science it is to-day. 

During the litigation over Morse's 
patents every incident which occurred 
during the voyage of the Sully was care- 
fully considered. 

Captain Pell said, " Before the vessel 
was in port, Mr. Morse addressed me 
in these words : l Well, Captain, should 
you hear of the telegraph one of these 
days as the wonder of the world, remem- 
ber the discovery was made on board 
the good ship Sully. ? " A passenger, Mr. 
Fisher, counsellor-at-law in Philadel- 
phia, testified to hearing Morse describe 
his alphabet; and he had no remem- 
brance of Dr. Charles T. Jackson's sug- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 69 

gestions. The history of all inventions 
has a certain sameness. The times are 
ripe, the steps have been taken, the in- 
vention is sure to come. Some one man 
of quick practical perception takes ad- 
vantage of the researches of others : his 
mind is not absorbed by trains of thought 
suggested by scientific investigation. 
The history of the invention of the 
telegraph and the telephone could be 
presented in parallel columns. The his- 
torian should not rely overmuch on the 
testimony of bystanders "where electricity 
is concerned. There are always men 
who, after the invention is made, be- 
lieve they were capable of making it. 
These men remember some suggestion 
which they have given the inventor. 
Their friends and possibly their wives 
state their conviction that the invention 
was due to the suggestion ; and this con- 
viction grows wdth time, and soon a 
claimant comes forward — a product of 
the native egotism of man and the adula- 



70 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
tion of friends. The truth seems to be 
that Morse was more fully possessed with 
the idea of the practicability of an elec- 
tro-magnetic telegraph than any other 
man at that time in America, and as 
soon as he landed in New York he set 
about making some moulds for an ar- 
rangement which would serve to inter- 
rupt an electric current and thus trans- 
mit his alphabet consisting of dots and 
lines. 

He took a room at his brother Eich- 
ard ? s house, and began a long struggle 
with poverty. His residence abroad had 
left him poor, notwithstanding the com- 
missions he had executed. He had three 
children, and it was necessary for him to 
work hard at his profession. There was 
little time to perfect the idea which had 
seized him. He worked at intervals, 
however, on the invention in a small 
room in his brother's house, which was 
provided with a lathe. Here he made 
some of his models. His artist life was 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 71 

unsuccessful ; and this want of success 
led him probably, as it had done several 
times before during his life, to incline to 
invention. At one time he had strong 
hopes of being selected by Congress to 
paint a great historical picture for the 
rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. 
There might be placed the departure or 
the return of Columbus — subjects which 
had long filled his mind. John Quincy 
Adams, then a member of a committee 
of the House of Eepresentatives to which 
the subject of the picture was referred, 
recommended that the competition be 
opened to foreign artists ; for, in his 
opinion, there were no American artists 
competent to undertake the decoration 
of the rotunda. James Fenimore Coo- 
per wrote in the New York Evening 
Post a severe reply to the remarks of ex- 
President Adams. This article was at- 
tributed to Morse, and perhaps con- 
tributed to the rejection of his name by 
the committee. This was a severe blow 



72 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
to Morse. It may, however, have been 
a blessing in disguise ; for it led him to 
turn again to his invention. Washing- 
ton Allston in a letter to him at this time 
said : " I know what your disappointment 
must have been at this result, and most 
sincerely do I sympathise with you. . . . 
You have it still in your power to let 
the world know what you can do. Dis- 
miss it, then, from your mind, and deter- 
mine to paint all the better for it. God 
bless you !" 

This and similar letters, which he re- 
ceived at this time, show the affection 
which he had inspired in his friends. 
A meeting of artists was called to pro- 
test at the action of the government, and 
an association was formed entitled "A 
Joint Stock Association of Artists for 
procuring Morse to paint an Historical 
Picture. 7 ' In a short time three thou- 
sand dollars was raised ; and, in addi- 
tion to this, a gentleman of Brooklyn 
offered to contribute canvas and all the 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 73 
materials for the picture. Morse was 
greatly inspirited by this most gratifying 
effort of his friends. He exclaimed that 
never had he read or known of such an 
act of professional generosity, and he re- 
solved to paint a picture to be entitled 
The Signing of the First Compact on 
Board the Mayfloiver. The association 
had suggested a small picture ; but 
Morse — who all his artistic life found 
no canvas large enough — declared that 
he would paint one the size of the panels 
in the rotunda. The picture, however, 
was never painted ; for the invention of 
the telegraph and the business entangle- 
ments were destined to occupy all his 
time. He finally returned to the mem- 
bers of the association the amount they 
had contributed, with interest. 

In 1835 he was appointed Professor of 
the Literature of the Arts of Design in 
the New York City University. He 
moved to a building on Washington 
Square (the University), and immedi- 



74 SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 
ately set up portions of his telegraphic 
apparatus. It was generally remarked 
at the time, with doubtful shakes of the 
head, that the professor was occupied 
more with invention than with art. It 
was fortunate for the university that he 
was not dismissed — a peril which might 
even now meet a professor with a voca- 
tion and an avocation. The work on his 
invention was certainly much retarded 
by his professional work ; and he prob- 
ably enjoyed to the full, as the phrase 
is, the experience of a professor who is 
filled with thoughts of a great investiga- 
tion and must devote his time to the 
cultivation of mediocre minds. At first, 
apparently, he made a complicated ap- 
paratus, with a keyboard similar to that 
of a piano, and with a mechanical ar- 
rangement for moving along sets of types, 
for making and breaking the electric 
circuit. The complicated devices gave 
way to simpler ones, and finally he 
adopted the single key which is now in 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 75 
common use. Instead of a pencil or pen 
to record the message, lie began to use a 
single hard point, which rested upon a 
ribbon of paper which was moved along 
by clock-work over a groove in a cylin- 
der. Many gentlemen testified in the 
subsequent litigation to seeing Morse's 
apparatus at that time. Among these 
observers was the Eev. Henry B. Tappan, 
subsequently president of the University 
of Michigan. He testified to seeing the 
first transmission and recording of words 
by lightning in Morse's room in 1835. 
He stated that a short telegraphic line 
had been strung around a long room in 
the university ; and he says, " I recollect 
1 well my delight at hearing the words 
which I silently gave in at one end ac- 
curately read off from the strip of paper 
I at the other." Daniel Huntington, sub- 
sequently president of the National 
i Academy of Design, was at that time a 
; pupil of Morse ; and he testified to seeing 
| Morse's instrument in operation in the 



76 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
year 1835. The Hon. Hamilton Fish said 
that he witnessed the telegraph in op- 
eration in 1836, "recording messages 
transmitted through some mile or more 
of wire suspended in successive turns 
around the walls ; there was a small bat- 
tery in one corner of the room and a sort 
of clock-work machinery in the other, 
and the mysterious little click, click, 
click of the former produced a simulta- 
neous record on the other. ? ? Commodore 
Shubrick of the United States Navy also 
testified to seeing the telegraphic instru- 
ments in actual operation in the winter 
of 1835. 

A very important point in regard to 
this early work of Morse on an electro- 
magnetic telegraph now arises. Did he 
invent the relay which made the tele- 
graph a success? He undoubtedly had 
perfected an alphabet, and had set up an 
experimental line representing a short 
distance. Henry, in 1835 or early in 
1836, had extended wires across the yard 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 77 

of the college grounds at Princeton, from 
the upper story of the library building 
to the Philosophical Hall on the opposite 
i side, through which he sent signals 
a which were distinguished by the number 
of taps on an electro-magnetic bell. He 
; had shown that, in order to transmit the 
. current to a great distance, it was neces- 
. sary to use a large number of galvanised 
- cells, and to wind the transmitting wire 
s many times around the receiving magnet, 
r which he therefore called an intensity 
magnet. He proved that an operator 
' could thus produce the most energetic 
actions at any required distance by pro- 
i viding this intensity magnet with an 
oscillating armature with a suitable pro- 
longation to open and close an adjoining 
circuit with a smaller number of cells 
and what he called a quantity magnet ; 
in other words, a magnet with a small 
number of turns of wire so arranged that 
the electrical resistance of the relay 
< battery should approximately equal the 



78 SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 
resistance of the wire around the mag- 
net. This closing of a relay circuit, he 
showed, could be accomplished by the 
swing of the most delicate galvanometer 
needle ; and he exhibited a large electro- 
magnet, which, being set in action by 
such a relay device, could lift more than 
three thousand pounds. Here was evi- 
dently the principle of the relay. It is 
said that on a visit to London with Pro- 
fessor Bache in 1837, Henry met Wheat- 
stone, then professor of experimental 
philosophy in King's College ; and he 
freely explained his arrangement of a 
local circuit which was set in action by 
a main circuit. Henry had the pleasure 
of describing his own device, which was 
substantially the same and which had 
been used the year previous. Wheat- 
stone, in conjunction with W. F. Cooke, 
secured a patent on June 12, 1837, which 
included the device of the relay. Morse, 
in a pamphlet published in Paris, 1867, 
relating the history of his invention, 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 79 

states that between 1835 and 1837 there 
was a very important addition to his 
telegraphic system which he did not 
dwell upon at that epoch ; for it was not 
necessary in the exhibitions which he 
I made at that time, but which was essen- 
l tial when the telegraph line was ex- 
tended beyond the limits of a hall. He 
a states that he knew that the electro- 
magnet at great distances would become 
I so enfeebled that it would be inoperative 
j for printing. He says that he had al- 
i ready conceived of a plan for extending 
i the operation of the telegraph, which 
1 was so simple that it hardly needed a 
I drawing to exhibit it ; and he goes on to 
describe the relay, and calls his colleague 
I Professor Gale to witness that in Janu- 
ary, 1836, he had imparted to him the 
; plan of the relay. 

We therefore turn our attention to 

Professor L. D. Gale, who was a colleague 

i professor in the University of the City 

' of New York, and who afterward was 



80 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
admitted to a fourth interest in tlie in- 
vention by Professor Morse. Gale, in 
tlie litigation which arose over Morse's 
patents, gives a very circumstantial ac- 
count of the state of the telegraph in 
1836. The fact that he was subsequently 
interested pecuniarily in the invention 
destroys, to my mind, much of the value 
of his testimony. He says that they had 
frequent consultations on methods of 
extending the distance to which signals 
could be transmitted. Morse often ex- 
plained his plans by which this could be 
accomplished. 

" Suppose/' said Professor Morse, 
"that in experimenting on twenty miles 
of wire we should find that the power of 
magnetism is so feeble that it will not 
move a lever with certainty a hair's 
breadth : that would be insufficient, it 
may be, to write or print ; yet it would 
be sufficient to close and break another 
or a second circuit twenty miles farther, 
and this second circuit could be made, 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 81 
in the same manner, to break and close 
a third circuit twenty miles farther, and 
so on around the globe." Gale then 
goes on to describe circumstantially the 
relay, giving drawings of a magnet on 
the main circuit drawing down an arma- 
: ture or rod of iron and closing a local or 
| relay circuit in which there is a supple- 
I mentary battery. Professor Gale is very 
| circumstantial with his dates, for they 
| were all- important for the purposes of 
1 the patent lawyers who conducted the 
| subsequent litigation. He mentions an 
exhibition in the cabinet of the univer- 
! sity on September 2, 1837, when Profes- 
i sor Danberry of Oxford University, Eng- 
land, together with Mr. Alfred Vail, 
: were present, and witnessed the action 
of the telegraph over a circuit of 1, 700 
7 feet of copper wire. The presence of 
i Mr. Vail was an important fact, for he had 
hesitated to put money into the invention 
until it could be shown that the action 
of the telegraph could be extended to 



82 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
great distances. Immediately after this 
interview, Alfred Vail and his brother 
George Vail furnished Morse with the 
means for an experiment on a larger 
scale. This was in 1837, and Morse could 
have been informed of Henry's experi- 
ments. Indeed ; it is stated in an address 
on Joseph Henry delivered at Princeton 
College June 16, 1885, by Edward W. 
Dickerson, LL.D., the distinguished pat- 
ent lawyer, that Professor Gale went to 
Henry to discover how the electric cur- 
rent could be strengthened to operate 
stations at a distance. In this address, 
Dickerson dwells upon Henry's devotion 
to pure science, and says: "It must 
have occurred to him at times, when he 
needed money for his experiments, and 
when he saw the fruits of his labour en- 
riching the world, that he might have 
taken some share of the wealth ; but he 
would not taint with selfishness his gen- 
erous gift. How valuable in money it 
was he knew full well. Even for that 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 83 

fragment of it, then for six years by him 
given to the public, which was carried 
to Morse in 1837 to enable him to con- 
struct his special plan of a recording 
telegraph in that year, now practically 
obsolete, Dr. Gale, who carried it, se- 
. cured a share in the patent which was 
founded upon it, and without which it 
could not have existed. For that share 
fifteen thousand in cash was subsequently 
paid to him." 

While I was working in the rooms de- 
voted to physical experiments in Har- 
vard University in the winter of 1873, a 
dignified elderly gentleman was ushered 
into the rooms. He had a remarkable 
philosophic countenance, which recalled 
in its massiveness that of Humboldt and 
Helmholtz. The visitor was Joseph 
Henry, and I showed him the electrical 
apparatus which was in use at the time. 
He listened with great gravity to my 
account of the experiments which were 
in progress, and on his departure, turn- 



84 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
ing toward a table covered with magnets 
and telegraphic relays, remarked, "If I 
had patented those devices, I should have 
reaped a large fortune." 

Let us follow the career of the man 
who was destined to receive great re- 
wards, and whose name has been in- 
scribed among those who shall shine for- 
ever like the stars in the firmament. 
During those strenuous years of professor- 
ship in the University of the City of New 
York, Morse was very poor. He lodged 
and ate his food in his studio, generally 
preparing it with his own hands. In 
order to conceal his manner of life from 
his friends, he brought his food to his 
rooms at night. It was difficult at that 
time to obtain electrical supplies. In- 
sulated wire was costly. The batteries 
were poor and inconstant, and therefore 
failed when they were needed most. 
Morse was compelled to go to a black- 
smith to have his wire shaped into cores 
for his electrical magnets, and he wound 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 85 
these cores himself. Henry also laboured 
under even greater difficulties in regard 
to the construction of his electrical ap- 
paratus. These difficulties must be 
l weighed when we wonder why men 
I halted so long over the steps which now 
i seem so simple. Morse was often asked 
why he did not speedily construct a du- 
\ plicate instrument for returning an 
j answer from a distant station. He ex- 
l hibited in 1835 only a sending instru- 
I ment. He answered that he had not the 
J means to construct it. The cost of such 
j a duplicate instrument to-day would not 
i exceed five dollars. It was suggested that 
jj he might have borrowed the requisite 
| sum. He says : i 6 My reply must be that 
I preferred the delay, and the hazards 
1 of a delay, to the hazard of being unable 
\ to repay the loan. I must be pardoned 
if I state that, even from my earliest 
I youth, I ever had the deepest repugnance 
I to incur debt by borrowing, even from 
my own relatives." 



86 SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 

In 1837 Mr. Alfred Vail, son of Judge 
Stephen Vail, entered into partnership 
with Morse, and provided him with the 
means for pushing his invention. The 
Vails were owners of iron and brass 
works at Speedwell, Morris County, 
New Jersey ; and Alfred Vail was in- 
terested in mechanical engineering, es- 
pecially in connection with the working 
of iron and brass. He was allotted one- 
fourth interest in Morse's patents, and 
Morse was given the superior facilities 
of the Vails' manufactory. Just about 
the time of the formation of this part- 
nership, the Hon. Levi Woodbury, Sec- 
retary of the Treasury of the United 
States, in consequence of the reports in 
regard to methods of . telegraphing in 
Europe, issued a circular to " certain 
collectors of the customs, commanders 
of revenue cutters, and other persons, " 
asking for information in regard to the 
various systems proposed. He particu- 
larly wished to know how far communi- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 87 
cation could be established, with what 
rapidity it could be worked, and what 
would be the probable expense. He 
says: "It would add to the interest 
of the subject if you would offer views 
as to the practicability of writing, with a 
system of telegraphs for communication 
in clear weather and in the daytime, 
another for communication in fogs, by 
cannon or otherwise, and in the night 
by the same mode, or by rockets, fires, 
i etc." 

Morse immediately replied to this cir- 
| cular, stating that he had made arrange- 
ments to demonstrate at Washington by 
January 1, 1838, his superior plan for 
| accomplishing telegraphic communica- 
i tion. He enters into many particulars 
I in regard to the probable expense of the 
system and in respect to the disposition 
of the wires. He evidently thought at 
I that time that it would be better to bury 
j them underground. He says that, if the 
j wires are stretched above ground, on 



88 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

poles, they might be a temptation to 
mischievous persons ; but he points out 
that the same objection had been made 
to water pipes, gas pipes, and railroads. 
He remarks that, if his system of tele- 
graphing should be established, it would 
have little rest day or night. "The 
advantage of communicating intelligence 
instantaneously, in hundreds of instances 
of daily occurrence, would warrant such 
a rate of postage (if it may be so called) 
as would amply defray all expenses of 
the first cost of establishing the system 
and of guarding it and keeping it in 
repair. " Immediately on sending this 
letter, Morse filed a caveat in Washing- 
ton, September 28, 1837, in which is to 
be found a careful description of his 
method, embraced under the following 
heads : — 

1. A system of signs, by which num- 
bers, and consequently words and sen- 
tences, are signified. 

2. A set of type, adapted to regulate 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 89 

and communicate the signs, with cases 
for convenient keeping of the type, and 
rules in which to set up the type. 

3. An apparatus called the portrule, 
for regulating the movement of the type 
rules, which rules, by means of the type, 
in their turn regulate the times and inter- 

, vals of the passage of electricity. 

4. A register which records the signs 
, permanently. 

5. A dictionary or vocabulary of words 
numbered and adapted to this system of 

L , telegraph. 

6. Modes of laying conductors to pre- 
serve them from injury. 

In reading the specifications of the 
patent, we are struck with the fact that 
it contained only the germ of the alpha- 
bet subsequently adopted. The types, 
the portrule, the register, the dictionary, 
and the mode of laying conductors to 
preserve them from injury were destined 
to pass out of use. No reference is made 
jto a relay. With the exception of the 



90 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
alphabet, Henry could have obtained a 
more comprehensive patent. 

In a letter to Alfred Yail at the time 
of obtaining this caveat, Morse says : 
" Professor Gale's services will be in- 
valuable to us, and I am glad he is dis- 
posed to enter into the matter with zeal. 
The more I think of the whole matter, 
the more I am convinced that, if it is 
perseveringly pushed at the moment 
(so favourable on many accounts to its 
adoption by government), the result will 
be all that we ought to wish for. We 
want the wire. We are ready for some 
important experiments necessary to es- 
tablish with certainty some points not 
yet established by experiments. The 
law of the magnetic influence at a distance 
is not yet discovered ; and your twenty 
miles of wire may enable us to make this 
discovery, and to keep ahead of our 
European rivals, as well as to proceed 
with certainty in our other arrange- 
ments. " This letter shows that he did 



SAMUEL F. B. MOBSE 91 

not yet appreciate the law of the relay. 
In November, 1837, Professor Gale, by 
increasing the battery power and also in- 
creasing the turns of wire on the electro- 
magnet — that is, by using Henry's in- 
tensity magnet — succeeded in sending 
signals ten miles. Morse immediately 
communicated this result to the Secretary 
of the Treasury. On January 24, 1838, 
he gave an exhibition of his telegraph 
to some friends in New York ; and the 
Journal of Commerce of January 29 said 
of it : " Intelligence was instantaneously 
transmitted through a circuit of ten 
miles, and legibly written on a cylinder 
at the extremity of the circuit. . . . Pro- 
fessor Morse has recently improved on 
his mode of marking, by which he can 
dispense altogether with the telegraphic 
dictionary, using letters instead of num- 
ber ; and he can transmit ten words per 
minute, which is more than double the 
number which can be transmitted by 
jneans of the dictionary. ?? Thus it is 



92 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

seen that the great labour which was be 
stowed on the compilation of a dictionary 
had been thrown away. Soon the typ< 
arrangement was destined to go, and i 
time the Morse register. Morse con 
sidered that his method of recording or 
printing the messages was one of the 
principal features of his invention which 
distinguished it from the European meth- 
ods. It is a curious fact that it is not 
used at all in America. The operator 
reads by Henry's method, that of sound. 
The recording or printing methods are 
still in vogue in Europe. Once, in visit- 
ing the offices of the London telegraphic 
system, I was shown a room where the 
future operator was learning to read 
messages by sound. In America it was 
found that the operator had learned the 
method almost instinctively, and disre- 
garded the printed records of the regis- 
ter upon the clock-work and other me- 
chanical arrangements on which Morse 
had spent so much invention. Nothing 



! 



SAMUEL P. B. MOESE 93 

to-day is left of Morse's invention but the 
alphabet and a few mechanical points. 
The tendency of the time seems to be 
toward sound rather than to printing, 
| and even the Morse alphabet seems to be 
doomed. 

Let us, however, study more closely 
i the action of Morse's mind at the time 
■ he pressed his invention upon the at- 
i tention of the government. It is evi- 
i dent that he was fully possessed with 
.'. the value of his invention and the ulti- 
e mate practicability of it. He had the 
!-• sanguine nature of an inventor. He was 
t! alert, moreover, quick to seize ideas 
which might aid him in his main ob- 
ject — quick, possibly, to assimilate such 
ideas so thoroughly that they often ap- 
peared to have emanated from his own 
mind. This cerebration of thoughts, 
.which contribute to the making of a 
great design, is a striking peculiarity of 
^some minds. Most professors have had 
^students who honestly believe that the 



94 SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 

investigation which has been suggested 
to them, and which has been aided by 
the ideas and long experience of the 
teacher, is entirely their own. Such 
students have a peculiar hospitality of 
mind. Morse was so strongly possessed 
with the idea of an electro-magnetic tele- 
graph that all the work of Henry and 
Wheatstone seemed necessarily tributary. 
He was alert, I have said, and business- 
like. Writing to his partners on re- 
ceiving news that his papers had been 
favourably received at the Patent Office, 
he says, "If you intend to do anything 
in England or France, no time is to be 
lost." He was approached by certain 
men who desired to erect private lines 
for the furtherance of business purposes. 
He writes of this to his partners, enjoin- 
ing secrecy : "But be close on the sub- 
ject, for it is essential to its success that 
it be secret. Terbum sat I am not 
idle, I assure you." He writes again: 
"We have just heard that Professor 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 95 

Wheatstone has tried an experiment 
with his method — twenty miles — with 
success. We have therefore nothing to 
fear. We also learn that he has sent to 
take out a patent, to this country. My 
caveat will be in his way. Professor 
Locke, of Cincinnati, who has just re- 
turned, tells us all this ; and he knows 
Wheatstone and his whole plan, and 
says that there are no less than six dis- 
putants for the priority of the invention 
in England. He also says that no one 
of the European plans pretends to record 
permanently ; that mine is decidedly su- 
perior in that respect, and peculiar." 

Here we see evidences of alertness 
and business ability. This man was a 
type of the modern business electrician 
rather than of the philosopher of which 
Henry and Faraday were such exem- 
plars. We are reminded of the remark 
made of Morse's father : "He had such 
an impetus !" He apparently recog- 
nised the value of cautious publicity 



96 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

in leading people to connect his name 
with, the electro-magnetic telegraph; 
for, in response to an invitation from the 
Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, he 
exhibited his apparatus when on his way 
to Washington. Among his audience 
was Joseph Saxton, subsequently at the 
head of the department of weights and 
measures under the superintendent of 
the Coast Survey. There were also 
present other prominent mechanicians. 
Arriving in Washington, Morse set up his 
apparatus in a room occupied by the 
Committee on Commerce in the Capitol. 
At first his visitors went away with little 
belief in the practical nature of the in- 
vention. On February 21, 1838, Presi- 
dent Van Buren and his entire cabinet 
visited the room, and Morse exhibited 
his telegraph in operation through ten 
miles of wire contained on a reel. The 
Hon. F. O. J. Smith, chairman of the 
Committee on Commerce, had been pre- 
viously interested by Morse in his inven- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 97 
tion ; and Morse had written a long 
letter to Smith, showing how desirable 
it would be for the government to own 
the invention, and to have the sole right 
to grant its use under important restric- 
tions to the public. The invention was 
of such importance to the government 
that it could well afford to aid the in- 
ventor by providing means for an ex- 
tended trial of one hundred miles ; and, 
in return for suitable aid, he promised 
"to enter into no arrangement to dis- 
pose of his patent rights to any individual 
or company previous to offering it to the 
government for a just and reasonable 
compensation.'' Again, after the ex- 
hibition of February 21, he writes to 
Mr. Smith, giving an estimate of the 
probable cost of such a trial. He con- 
cludes that a trial of fifty miles would 
be sufficiently satisfactory, and that such 
a trial would cost twenty-six thousand 
dollars. A table of items of expense 
was given. The most interesting item 



98 SAMUEL P. B. MOESB 

was one of twelve hundred dollars for 
preparation of the wire by the use of 
such things as u caoutchouc, wax, resin, 
tar, with reels for winding, soldering, 
etc., say six dollars per mile." 

The experiment was to be tried on a 
metallic circuit, with wires above ground. 
But it was evidently contemplated ulti- 
mately to bury the wires, for it is ex- 
pressly stated that the estimate of twenty- 
six thousand dollars did not include the 
expense necessary to lay the wires under 
ground. Having sent this letter, Morse 
then drew up a respectful memorial to 
Congress, asking it set terms for an ap- 
propriation. One sees the directing 
hand of the Hon. F. O. J. Smith in all 
this, and the business ability of Morse in 
using Mr. Smith. On April 6, 1838, 
Mr. Smith, as chairman of the Commit- 
tee of Commerce, made a long report, 
arguing that the government, in view 
of the importance of Professor Morse's 
invention, should make an appropriation 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 99 

of thirty thousand dollars for a trial of 
fifty miles. Mr. Smith dilates upon the 
importance of the invention. It was 
evident that Morse had made a complete 
convert of him. He says in the report : 
" With the means of almost instantaneous 
communication of intelligence between 
the most distant points of the country, 
and simultaneously between any given 
number of intermediate points which 
this invention contemplates, space will 
be to all practical purposes of informa- 
tion completely annihilated between the 
states of the Union, as also between the 
individual citizens thereof. The citizens 
will be invested with, and reduce to 
daily and familiar use, an approach to 
the High Attribute of Ubiquity, in a 
degree that the human mind until 
recently has hardly dared to contem- 
plate seriously as belonging to human 
agency, from an instinctive feeling of re- 
i ligious reverence and reserve on a power 
J of such awful grandeur. " 



100 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

After this burst of religious feeling, 
Mr. Smith, intimated to Mr. Morse his 
willingness to take an interest in the in- 
vention. He accordingly resigned his 
seat in Congress, and became a partner 
in the enterprise, which was divided 
into sixteen shares. Morse held nine; 
Mr. Smith, four ; Mr. Alfred Yail, two ; 
and Professor Gale, one. Again one sees 
in this distribution no diminution of 
business ability. One had to do with an 
alert inventor. 



IV. 

On May 16, 1838, Morse sailed for 
Europe to secure foreign patents. His 
third European trip was destined to be 
a melancholy failure from a pecuniary 
point of view: The English authorities 
were apparently persuaded of the prior- 
ity and superior value of Wheatstone's 
invention, for the American inventor 
was denied even a hearing. It was 
claimed that his invention had been 
published in the London Mechani&s 
Magazine of February 10, 1838. The 
article had been copied from SiUimari>s 
Journal of Science of October, 1837. This 
article merely stated that the distinguish- 
ing features of Morse's invention were a 
register which permanently recorded the 
message in characters easily legible, and 
a single wire. It spoke, too, of points or 
marks to be read and of a pencil that 
marks. The English authorities con- 
sidered this a prior publication, and 



102 SAMUEL P. B. MOESB 

therefore refused to issue a patent. 
Morse bitterly condemned this attitude, 
and in able letters requested a fuller 
hearing. This, however, was refused; 
and the only alternative was to appeal 
to Parliament for a special act. This 
was a long and doubtful proceeding, and 
Morse was not inclined to it, and accord- 
ingly proceeded to try his fortunes on 
the Continent. "While in England, he 
satisfied himself that Wheatstone's tele- 
graph was manifestly inferior to his own. 
Wheatstone required "six conductors 
between the points of intercommunica- 
tion for a single instrument at each of the 
two termini. " The receiver consisted 
of five magnetic needles which served to 
point to letters upon a dial plate. It was 
not, therefore, a recording telegraph. 

Morse was more successful in Paris, and 
obtained a patent ; and he was gratified 
at the interest in his invention displayed 
by the many distinguished Frenchmen. 
He exhibited the telegraph at the French 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 103 

Institute. Baron Humboldt expressed 
the opinion that it was the best of all 
the plans that had been devised. The 
administrator in chief of the French 
bureau of telegraphs, M. Alphonse Foy, 
also expressed the same opinion. The 
telegraph was exhibited to M. Arago, 
the great physicist, who was delighted 
with it, and proposed that it should be 
exhibited to the Academy of Sciences. 
Among those present at the seance were 
Arago, Humboldt, Gay-Lussac. Morse 
says in a letter to Mr. Vail : " Arago de- 
scribed it to them, and I showed its ac- 
tion. A buzz of admiration and appro- 
bation filled the whole hall ; and the 
exclamations, 'Extraordinaire ! ? 'Tres 
Men ! ? 'Tres admirable I ' I heard on all 
sides. The sentiment was universal. " 
Truly, this reception was most gratify- 
ing, and augured well for the future. 
Morse was at first full of hope, but he 
was destined to a fresh disappointment. 
He was received everywhere with great 



104 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
politeness. His invention was lauded, 
but he seemed no nearer to any practical 
results. By the French law an inventor 
is obliged to put his invention in prac- 
tical operation within two years from 
the issue of his patent. Morse tried to 
effect this along the St. Germain Bail- 
road Company's lines, a distance of 
seven miles from Paris to St. Germain, 
but was unsuccessful. He was told that, 
if the telegraph was to be a government 
matter, he could not enter into relations 
with private individuals ; and the gov- 
ernment did not act. Altogether, he was 
having an experience of French polite- 
ness, which was no more productive of 
practical results than his experience with 
English brusqueness. He wrote to the 
Hon. F. O. J. Smith, lamenting his own 
lack of business ability in pushing mat- 
ters to a conclusion. He thought of pro- 
posing that, in case the government 
would do nothing to form a company, 
he should take the right at one thousand 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 105 
francs per mile, paying the proprietors 
fifty per cent, in stock and fifty per 
cent, in cash, raising about fifty thousand 
francs for a preliminary trial. He re- 
marks again that he is a child in business 
matters. u I can invent and perfect the 
invention, but further the deponent saith 
not." The critic of his life labours, 
however, feels that he underrated him- 
self in this respect. He had pushed his 
invention in an energetic manner and 
had already enlisted capital. His visit 
to Europe gave great publicity to his 
invention. It was a lecture on an ex- 
tended scale and on an elevated plat- 
form, and was not without ultimate re- 
sults, notwithstanding that he failed in 
England and never received anything 
from his French patent. While in Paris, 
Morse also enlisted the interest of Baron 
Meyendorf, the agent of the Emperor of 
Eussia for reporting useful discoveries to 
the Eussian government. In this case he 
was filled with alternate hope and de- 



106 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

spair, and finally concluded to return to 
America to push the matter before Con 
gress. 

During his absence. Dr. Charles T. 
Jackson, his fellow-passenger on board 
the Sully j had laid public claim to the 
invention. In a letter to Mr. Smith, 
Paris, July 13, 1839, Morse indignantly 
refutes the claims of Jackson, and says 
that he has sent a letter to him, " calling 
on him to save his character by a total 
disclaimer of his presumptuous claim 
within one week from the receipt of the 
letter, and giving him the plea of a •' mis- 
take ' and misconception of my invention 
by which he may retreat." He scores 
Jackson, speaks of his consummate self- 
conceit, and says that he knows that he 
has not the claim to a point of any kind. 
The letter is that of an indignant honest 
man. This controversy with Dr. Jack- 
son was most unfortunate, and how much 
Jackson had to do with firmly planting 
the idea in suitable ground will never be 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 107 

known until Morse and Jackson stand 
together where all things will be brought 
to light. Time certainly will never re- 
veal any evidence which will decide who 
originated the fertile idea. If Jackson, 
like Alexander Graham Bell, the in- 
ventor of the telephone, had immediately 
availed himself of the services of a skil- 
ful mechanic, there might have been a 
closer race between him and Morse. 
The latter had the mechanical skill 
which Dr. Jackson apparently lacked. 
The painter had all his life used imple- 
ments and made models. He could con- 
ceive and also execute. Jackson's mind 
was capable of conceiving the idea, and he 
knew the literature of the subject. Both 
men were doubtless honest in their public 
professions of the ownership of the great 
idea. The historian who says the last 
word on this controversy must also be a 
psychologist who has studied the subject 
of cerebration, the unconscious assimila- 
tion of ideas which makes them forever 



108 SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 
a part of the assimilator. Joseph Henry 
knew that an electro-magnetic telegraph 
was possible ; but scientific researches 
seemed to him more important than in- 
vention of electrical devices. It is inter- 
esting to notice that he did not put in a 
claim, as he well might, for an electro- 
magnetic telegraph. When Morse con- 
sulted him in regard to the practicability 
of the extension of the telegraph to great 
distances, Henry wrote, February 24, 
1842 : — 

"The idea of transmitting intelli- 
gence to a distance by means of electrical 
action has been suggested by various 
persons, from the time of Franklin to the 
present ; but until within the last few 
years, or since the principal discoveries 
in electro-magnetism, all attempts to re- 
duce it to practice were necessarily un- 
successful. The mere suggestion, how- 
ever, of a scheme of this kind is a matter 
for which little credit can be claimed, 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 109 

since it is one which would naturally 
arise in the mind of almost any person 
familiar with the phenomena of electric- 
ity ; but the bringing it forward at the 
proper moment, when the developments 
of science are able to furnish the means 
of certain success, and the devising a 
plan for carrying it into practical opera- 
tion, are the grounds of a just claim to 
scientific reputation, as well as to public 
patronage. 

" About the same time with yourself 
Professor Wheatstone, of London, and Dr. 
Steinheil, of Germany, proposed plans of 
the electro-magnetic telegraph; but these 
differ as much from yours as the nature 
of the common principle would well per- 
mit, and, unless some essential improve- 
ments have lately been made in these 
European plans, I should prefer the one 
invented by yourself. 

"With my best wishes for your suc- 
cess, I remain, with much esteem, yours 
truly, Joseph Henry. " 



110 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

This letter shows a generous apprecia- 
tion of Morse's practical invention and 
a lofty indifference to the money value of 
his own contributions to the theory of 
the telegraph. Morse sent a copy of this 
letter to the Hon. "W. W. Boardman, 
member of Congress, urging action of 
Congress, in which he says, speaking of 
Henry : ' c He is not of an enthusiastic 
temperament, but exceedingly cautious 
in giving an opinion on scientific inven- 
tions ; yet in this case he expressed him- 
self in the warmest terms, and told my 
friend Dr. Chilton (who informed me of 
it) that he had just been witnessing the 
operation of the most beautiful and in- 
genious instrument he had ever seen." 

Morse found on his return from his un- 
successful European trip that nothing had 
been done by Congress. He was very 
poor, and at times thought of throwing 
up the invention and returning to his 
profession of an artist. General Strother, 
of Virginia, u Porte Crayon," testifies to 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 111 

the inventor's poverty. He took paint- 
ing lessons of Morse ; and, on one occa- 
sion, Morse asked for a portion of his 
fee, and the Wo dined together. Morse 
said : "This is my first meal for twenty- 
four hours. Str other, don't be an artist. 
It means beggary. Tour life depends 
upon people who know nothing of your 
art and care nothing for you. A house 
dog lives better, and the very sensitive- 
ness that stimulates an artist to work 
I keeps him alive to suffering." 

The Patent Office issued Morse's patent 
| in 1840, the delay having been caused 
t by Morse's request that the issue might 
be postponed until the foreign patents 
had been secured. Morse had before 
him the usual fate of inventors — the ne- 
cessity of fighting for his patent. The 
unscrupulous, too, are great assimilators 
of other men's ideas. He had yet, how- 
ever, to show that there was money in 
J the invention ; and he had no money to do 
this. Apparently, he received very little 



112 SAMUEL P. B. MOESE 
help from his partners. The resources of 
the Hon. P. O. J. Smith were exhausted by 
the European tripi Mr. Vail seemed re- 
luctant to give further aid, and Professor 
Gale was a professor. The partners were 
widely separated. Morse says in a letter, 
1841, to Vail: "All the burden now 
rests on my shoulders, after years of time 
and attention to the enterprise ; and I 
am willing, so far as I am able, to bear 
my share if the other proprietors will 
lend a helping hand and give me facili- 
ties to act, and a reasonable recompense 
for my services in case of success. " In 
another letter he says, "I have to do all 
the labour of the whole enterprise at 
present, and have not a cent of money 
in the world. " In a letter to Mr. Smith 
in 1842 he repeats the same sentiment : 
"The depressed situation of all my asso- 
ciates in the invention has thrown the 
whole burden of again attempting a 
movement entirely on me. . . . You 
must perceive at what disadvantage I do 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 113 
business when, before I can make any 
answer to queries from persons who feel 
disposed to take hold of the enterprise, I 
must write two or three letters of particu- 
lars to different parts of the country, and 
wait days for an answer. The necessity 
of our telegraph is made evident in this 
very case. If you had in your parlour 
one of my registers, there would be no 
need of a long journey, or of waiting 
three or four days for an answer. " It is 
difficult to realise to-day Morse's in- 
ability to enlist capital in his enterprise. 
Electricity now is used by all sorts of pro- 
moters ; and there are numberless cases 
of organisation of business men who 
"chip in," as the expression runs, or 
"take flyers" in more or less chimerical 
plans. Morse can claim to have been 
the first man to show the money value of 
electricity ; and he endured the priva- 
tions similar to that of a prospector who 
toils through the wilderness and over the 
mountains to a rich placer, where, hav- 



114 SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 

ing shown the way, he must defend him- 
self from thieves and the unscrupulous. 

Even the men whom he was destined 
to enrich failed him at the pinch. He 
applied to the Vails for a small sum to go 
to Washington to make one last attempt 
to obtain the assistance of the government. 
He met with a polite refusal to advance 
further sums. All now depended on 
Morse, and he exerted that "impetus" 
which was a family characteristic. 
He wrote a very able letter to the 
Hon. 0. Gr. Ferris of New York, one of 
the House Committee on Commerce, de- 
tailing at great length the advantages of 
his telegraph, and submitting very busi- 
ness-like estimates of cost of construction 
and of revenues that might be reasonably 
expected. This letter shows that Morse 
could use the pen as well as the pencil, 
and it resulted in Mr. Ferris' s submitting 
a report to Congress which at last re- 
sulted in favourable action. The debate 
on the resolution to give aid to Morse 



SAMUEL F. B. MOBSE 115 
lias not been preserved ; but, if we can 
judge from a brief abstract of the discus- 
sion in the Congressional Globe of Feb- 
ruary 21, 1813, certain members wrote 
themselves out, to use Shakespearian lan- 
guage, "as asses." 

The Hon. Cave Johnson came out of 
his adumbration with an amendment 
proposing that one-half of the appropri- 
ation be given to a Mr. Fisk to enable 
him to carry on mesmeric experiments. 
The same sapient gentleman became 
Postmaster-general under Polk, and ex- 
pressed an official opinion "that the 
operation of the telegraph between 
Washington and Baltimore had not satis- 
fied him that, under any rate of postage 
that could be adopted, its revenues could 
be made equal to its expenditures. " 
The Hon. Sam Houston thought that 
Millerism should receive an appropria- 
tion. The amendment was rejected ; 
and on February 23, 1813, the bill pro- 
viding for the appropriation was passed 



116 SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 
by a majority of six. An analysis of the 
votes of the members shows that the 
states which voted for the appropriation 
were those in which the average of edu- 
cation was highest. Only two slave- 
holding states voted for it. Morse sat in 
the gallery of the Senate at the Capitol 
during the entire day and evening of the 
session, and, being assured that there was 
no possibility of a vote being reached, 
retired, worn out and dispirited. In 
the morning a young lady told him that 
her father was present at the close of the 
session, and that the bill had been passed. 
Morse, overjoyed, said that she should 
send the first message over the first line 
of telegraph that should be opened. 
Morse immediately set to work on the 
experimental line. His assistants were 
Professor L. D. Gale, Professor J. 0. 
Fisher, and Mr. Vail. At the same time 
Mr. Ezra Cornell, the subsequent founder 
of Cornell University, became associated 
with the enterprise. He had invented 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 117 
a machine for laying an underground 
pipe which contained insulated wires ; 
for it was then considered essential that 
the wires should be placed in the earth, 
and not overhead. Almost immediately 
it was found that there were practical as 
well as electrical difficulties in thus en- 
closing the wires, and it was decided to 
adopt the overhead method. No sooner 
was this done than the principal difficul- 
ties seemed to vanish. Mr. Vail had a 
plan of fixing the wires to the poles 
which Morse was about to adopt in pref- 
erence to one proposed by Cornell. On 
consultation with Professor Henry he 
concluded to adopt the plan of Cornell. 
Many months during 1843 and the early 
part of 1844 were spent in experimental 
trials on the necessary battery strength 
to operate the line between Baltimore 
and Washington. 

On May 24, 1844, everything was in 
readiness for the final trial. Morse's 
friends were assembled in the Supreme 



118 SAMUEL F. B. MOKSE 
Court room at Washington, which, was 
one of the termini of the line. Miss Ells- 
worth, the young lady who had an- 
nounced the welcome news to Morse of 
the passing of his appropriation by Con- 
gress, and who had been promised the 
sending of the first telegraphic message, 
was present. Her mother suggested a 
line from Numbers xxiii. 23 — "What 
hath God wrought. " Morse sent the 
message. It was instantaneously received 
by Vail, who did not know of its choice, 
and was telegraphed back to Washing- 
ton. A conversation over the line then 
followed. Morse said, " Stop a few min- 
utes. ? ? Vail replied, ' c Yes. ' ' Then the 
conversation went on: "Have you any 
news ? ? ' " No. " " Mr. Seaton' s respects 
to you." "My respects to him." 
i l What is your time ? ' ' " Mne o ? clock, 
twenty-eight minutes. " " What weather 
have you?" "Cloudy." "Separate 
your words more." "Oil your clock- 
work." "Buchanan stock said to be 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 119 
rising.' 7 U I have a great crowd at 
my window.'' "Van Buren cannon 
in front, with a fox tail on it." 
The carping politicians and statesmen, 
however, soon received further evidence 
of the success of the experiments with 
the telegraph. The National Democratic 
Convention for the nomination of presi- 
dential candidates assembled in Balti- 
more, May 29. There was a long and 
exciting struggle over the nominees. 
Van Buren was finally dropped, and 
James K. Polk received the nomination. 
A struggle then arose over the candidates 
for Vice-President. Silas Wright, of New 
York, was nominated. Mr. Wright was 
then in Washington ; and Vail tele- 
graphed the news of the nomination to 
Morse, who communicated it to Wright. 
The convention was astonished at re- 
ceiving a telegraphic message from Mr. 
Wright declining the nomination, and 
refused to believe it. The convention 
adjourned until a committee could go to 



120 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 

Washington and get reliable information 
on the subject. 

The experimental line was a success, 
and the question now arose in regard to 
selling the telegraph to the government. 
The sum named was only one hundred 
thousand dollars. The Hon. Cave John- 
son, as we have already said, reported 
against it. At the present time the capi- 
talisation of the Western Union Tele- 
graph Company is one hundred million 
dollars. On May 15, 1845, a private 
company was formed, which included the 
names of Hon. Amos Kendall, formerly 
Postmaster-general under Jackson, Ezra 
Cornell, Hon. P. O. J. Smith, Alfred 
Yail, and twenty-two other stockholders. 

Morse again started for Europe, Au- 
gust 6, 1845, to enlist foreign capital. 
He was again unsuccessful in England, 
and also on the Continent ; and he re- 
turned to America with a stronger feeling 
of patriotism than ever. There his affairs 
at last were in able business hands, and 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 121 
lines were being rapidly constructed. 
Then, the way having been pointed out, 
the modern highwayman and the nine- 
teenth-century type of the robbers of 
the Ehine began their attacks on the 
j validity of Morse's patents. The first 
lawsuit is especially interesting, since it 
shows the evidence of a socialistic move- 
ment which strives to fatten on other 
people's brains, and which is not absent 
| as we enter upon a new century. A 
• contract had been made June 13, 1845, 
with Henry O'Bielly, who had been 
prominent in the construction of the 
| lines between Philadelphia and Wash- 
I ington, to construct a line from Philadel- 
phia to St. Louis, and to certain other 
1 points which were carefully specified. 
The line to St. Louis was finished in 
December, 1847. O'Bielly then, with- 
out authority, began a line to New Or- 
leans, which was entitled the People's 
Line, and on which he claimed to use 
instruments which differed essentially 



122 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
from the Morse instruments. The Morse 
company immediately applied for an 
injunction. The would-be robbers rep- 
resented to the great American public 
that the Morse company was a dangerous 
monopoly; perhaps the word " trust " 
was used by the newspapers and the 
politicians of that day. The title "The 
People's Line" was captivating, and 
many of the good people found reasons 
for believing that Morse was not the 
real inventor of the telegraph. It was 
maintained that Wheatstone in England 
and Steinheil of Bavaria had preceded 
Morse. It was urged that Joseph Henry 
had invented the relay. The O'Bielly 
case was tried in Louisville, Kentucky, 
August 24, 1848, and was decided in 
favour of Morse. An appeal was taken 
to the Supreme Court at "Washington. 
Salmon P. Chase, afterwards Chief Jus- 
tice of the United States, was one of the 
lawyers retained by O'Bielly. The Su- 
preme Bench gave a decision in favour 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESB 123 
of Morse, and Chief Justice Taney de- 
livered a very fall opinion. 

There are many scientific men even 
to-day who think that Joseph Henry 
was the real inventor of the telegraph, 
since his researches clearly embody the 
principles which underlie its action. It 
is sometimes difficult for a professor to 
understand the principles which guide 
the legal profession in their conduct of 
patent cases. A method of procedure 
has grown up which is probably justified 
by experience and public exigency. 
The question of dates and records is ex- 
tremely important, since men are prone 
"to think more highly of themselves 
than they ought to do," and their words 
and opinions undergo strange changes in 
the presence of a glittering prize. A 
clear light upon the standpoint of the 
legal profession in such matters is shown 
by the following extract from an opinion 
of Judge Kane, delivered in Philadel- 
phia September, 1851, in the case of 



124 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
Morse's company, the Magnetic Tele- 
graph. Company versus the "Bain 
Line" : — 

u It is only to make the first approach 
to a controversy on this point, to prove 
to us that Professor Henry had, as early 
as 1828, made the intensity magnet, with 
which the scientific world is now familiar, 
or that he afterwards, and before Mr. 
Morse's first application for a patent, had 
illustrated before his classes at Prince- 
ton the manner in which one circuit 
could operate to hold another closed or 
to break it at pleasure, or that he had 
foreseen the applicability of his discov- 
eries to the purposes of a telegraph. The 
question is not one of scientific prece- 
dence ; and, if it were, this is not the 
forum that could add to or detract from 
the eminent fame of Mr. Henry. It is 
purely a question of invention applied 
in a practical form to a specific use ; and 
so regarded, it admits but a single 
answer." In other words, Morse had 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 125 
invented a new and useful art. It is 
interesting to note that no scientific ex- 
perts were employed by the litigants. 
The subject was young, and all the liter- 
ature on the subject of electricity could 
be understood by even those not trained 
in science. There was, therefore, less 
tergiversation in the records of this liti- 
gation than in the case of subsequent 
electrical cases. The library of the IsTew 
York Historical Society contains more 
than one hundred volumes devoted to 
the history of telegraphic litigation in 
the United States. 

Morse was at last successful. The 
great invention had been made, and a 
fortune was his. He took for a second 
wife Miss Sarah E. Griswold of Pough- 
keepsie, New York, the daughter of his 
cousin. She was twenty-five years of 
age, and he was now fifty-six. He pur- 
chased two hundred acres of land near 
j Poughkeepsie, and entered upon the 
i final period of prosperity and distinc- 



126 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
tion. The Sturm und Drang of life was 
over. His serenity was only disturbed 
by occasional incursions into his tele- 
graphic fields of the robber barons whom 
we have mentioned. It is probable that 
the repelling of these attacks and the 
increasing business due to his telegraphic 
interests prevented his resuming the 
brush. I am inclined to think that he 
had found his true vocation, that of an 
inventor. His great impetus was in this 
direction rather than in art. Honours 
now became his. He received the de- 
gree of LL.D. from Yale College. Vari- 
ous gold medals were bestowed upon 
him by foreign governments. The King 
of Denmark bestowed upon him the 
cross of the order of Dannebrog. He 
was elected a member of the Eoyal 
Academy of Sciences of Sweden. Isa- 
bella II., Queen of Spain, conferred the 
order of knighthood and Commander of 
the first class of the Eoyal Order of Isa- 
bella the Catholic. Victor Emmanuel 



•i 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 127 
II. , King of Italy, gave hirn the brevet 
and insignia of Chevalier of the Eoyal 
Order of SS. Maurizio et Lazare. The 
Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Natu- 
relle of Geneva, Switzerland, elected him 
an honorary member. 

In 1857 Morse had issued a memorial 
to several of the diplomatic representa- 
tives of the United States government in 
Europe, setting forth his claims to the 
great invention and his claims for indem- 
nity for the use of his telegraph. The 
American minister in Paris, the Hon. 
John T. Mason, was influential in bring- 
ing this memorial to the attention of the 
French government and to other repre- 
sentatives of the powers ; and a conven- 
tion formed of members from France, 
Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Pied- 
mont, Eussia, the Holy See, Sweden, 
Tuscany, and Turkey, recommended a 
testimonial of four hundred thousand 
francs, which was remitted in four annu- 
ities. It is noticeable that Great Britain 



128 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
did not join in this testimonial. His 
native country honoured him with ban- 
quets ; and, when he was eighty years of 
age, a bronze statue of him was placed, 
with imposing ceremonies, in Central 
Park, New York. He died at Pough- 
keepsie, New York, April 2, 1872. 

Morse was fortunate in entering the 
field of electrical invention when re- 
searches had been made which rendered 
the success of a telegraph possible. He 
had few competitors. Where to-day 
there are a thousand electricians, then 
there was only one. The invention of 
the telegraph was sure to come, and he 
was the chosen torch-bearer. He was 
fortunate in having received a liberal 
education, which, together with his 
natural urbanity, gave him influential 
friends. 

During his severe struggle, Morse ex- 
hibited the strong moral qualities of 
courage and persistence. When great 
success came to him, he forgot his in- 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 129 

debtedness to Joseph Henry. Morse in 
1855 published a pamphlet in which he 
announced : — 

" First: I certainly shall show that 
I have not only manifested every dis- 
position to give due credit to Professor 
Henry, but, under the hasty impression 
that he deserved credit for discoveries 
in science bearing upon the telegraph, 
I did actually give him a degree of 
credit not only beyond what he had 
received at that time from the scientific 
world, but a degree of credit to which 
subsequent research has proved him not 
to be entitled. Second : I shall show 
that I am not indebted to him for any 
discoveries in science bearing on the 
telegraph, and that all discoveries of 
principles having this bearing were 
made not by Professor Henry, but by 
others, and prior to any experiments of 
Professor Henry in the science of electro- 
magnetism. Third : I shall further 
show that the claim set up for Professor 



130 SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 
Henry to the invention of an important 
part of my telegraph system has nc 
validity in fact." 

Joseph Henry, in a dignified com- 
munication to the Eegents of the Smith- 
sonian, says in reference to his state- 
ments in court: "It was my wish, in 
every statement, to render Mr. Morse 
full and scrupulous justice. While I 
was constrained, therefore, to state that 
he had made no discoveries in science, I 
distinctly declared that he was entitled 
to the merit of combining and applying 
the discoveries of others in the invention 
of the best practical form of the mag- 
netic telegraph. My testimony tended 
to establish the fact that, though not en- 
titled to the exclusive use of the electro- 
magnet for telegraphic purposes, he was 
entitled to his particular machine, reg- 
ister, alphabet, etc." 

A select committee of the Board of 
Eegents took up this assault of Morse 
upon their distinguished secretary. 



SAMUEL F. B. MOESE 131 
The chairman of this committee was 
President Felton of Harvard University, 
and it characterised the attack of Morse 
as a " disingenuous piece of sophistical 
argument/ 7 and stated their conviction 
that Morse had failed to substantiate 
any one of the charges he had made 
against Professor Henry. 

Nevertheless, to Morse must be given 
the credit of the adaptation of Henry's 
investigations to the needs of mankind. 
He was a pioneer in the subject of the 
practical applications of electricity ; 
and, since his time, other men have at- 
tained great popular reputation as in- 
ventors in electricity, who like him had 
aot distinguished themselves by scientific 
investigations, and, indeed, had in gen- 
eral very little knowledge of science. 
The world, however, recognises its debt 
co them for their perception of the prac- 
rical value of scientific work and their 

courage, persistence, and energy in 

thieving practical results. 



BIBLIOGEAPHY. 

The general reader will find many 
short essays in various periodicals and 
cyclopaedias which give the main in- 
cidents in the life of Morse. There is 
also one extended biography — that of 
Prime. The short bibliography given 
below includes the articles written by 
Morse, which throw light upon his 
artistic career and the subsequent de- 
velopment of his powers as an inventor. 
In the prolonged litigation which fol- 
lowed his great invention there were 
many points raised in regard to his 
merits as an original discoverer ; and the 
principal authorities which discuss these 
points have been included in this short 
list. 

I. The American Electro-magnetic 
Telegraph : With the Eeports of Con- 
gress and a Description of all Telegraphs 
known employing Electricity or Galvan- 
ism. By Alfred Vail. (Philadelphia, 
1845 : Lee & Blanchard. ) 



BIBLIOGEAPHY 133 

The treatise was written by the part- 
ner of Morse in the latter 7 s early strug- 
gles to bring his invention to the atten- 
tion of the public, and contains a good 
description of Morse's apparatus. 

II. Morse's Patent : Full Exposure 
of Chas. T. Jackson's Pretensions to 
the Intention of the American 
Electro-magnetic Telegraph. By 
Amos Kendall. (New York, 1849.) 

This is an exposition of the view 
taken by the partisans of Morse in re- 
gard to the claim of Dr. Jackson, and 
those who are curious in regard to the 
origin of the idea of the telegraph in 
Morse's mind will find a full criticism 
of Dr. Jackson's claims. 

III. Historic Annals of the Na- 
tional Academy of Design. By 
Thomas S. Cummings, N.A. (Phila- 
delphia, 1865 : George W. Childs.) This 
interesting treatise by a professor of the 
arts of design in the New York Univer- 



134 BIBLIOGEAPHY 

sity contains a full account of Morse's 
connection with the National Academy 
of Design, and is therefore illustrative 
of his artist's career. 

IV. Memorial of S. F. B. Morse. 
Order of City Council. (Boston, 1872.) 
A collection of addresses in honour of 
Morse. 

V. Life of Samuel Finlay Breese 
Morse. By Samuel Irenseus Prime. 
(New York, 1875 : D. Appleton & Co.) 
The most complete biography of Morse 
which has been printed. 

VI. A Memorial of Joseph Henry. 
Published by order of Congress. (Wash- 
ington, 1880 : Government Printing 
Office.) This includes Henry's letters 
to Morse, and the history of Morse's 
attack upon Henry, in which Morse dis- 
claims haying received any assistance 
from the original investigations of 
Henry in electricity and magnetism. 



The BEACON BIOGRAPHIES. 

M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE, Editor, 

The aim of this series is to famish brief, read- 
able, and authentic accounts of the lives of those 
Americans whose personalities have impressed 
themselves most deeply on the character and 
history of their country. On account of the 
length of the more formal lives, often running 
into large volumes, the average busy man and 
woman have not the time or hardly the inclina- 
tion to acquaint themselves with American bi- 
ography. In the present series everything that 
such a reader would ordinarily care to know is 
given by writers of special competence, who 
possess in full measure the best contemporary 
point of view. Each volume is equipped with 
a frontispiece portrait, a calendar of important 
dates, and a brief bibliography for further read- 
ing. Finally, the volumes are printed in a form 
convenient for reading and for carrying handily 
in the pocket. 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers. 

Pierce Building, Copley Square, Boston. 

[over~| 



The BEACON BIOGRAPHIES 



The following volumes are issued: — 

Louis Agassiz, by Alice Bache Gould. 
Edwin Booth, by Charles Townsend Copeland. 
Phillips Brooks, by M. A. DeWolfe Howe. 
John Brown, by Joseph Edgar Chamberlin. 
Aaron Burr, by Henry Childs Merwin. 

James Fenimore Cooper, by W. B. Shubrick Clymer. 

Stephen Decatur, by Cyrus Townsend Brady. 
Frederick Douglass, by Charles W. Chesnutt. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Frank B. Sanborn- 
David G. Farragut, by James Barnes. 
Ulysses S. Grant, by Owen Wister. 

Alexander Hamilton, by James Schouler. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Mrs. James T. Fields. 
Father Hecker, by Henry D. Sedgwick, Jr. 
Sam Houston, by Sarah Barnwell Elliott. 

" Stonewall " Jackson, by Carl Hovey. 

Thomas Jefferson, by Thomas E. Watson. 

Robert E. Lee, by William P. Trent. 

Henry W. Longfellow, by George Rice Carpenter. 

James Russell Lowell, by Edward Everett Hale, Jr. 

Samuel F. B. Morse, by John Trowbridge. 

Thomas Paine, by Ellery Sedgwick. 

Daniel Webster, by Norman Hapgood. 

John Greenleaf Whittier, by Richard Burton. 

The following are among those in preparation : — 

John Jacob Astor, by Arthur Astor Carey. 
John James Audubon, by John Burroughs. 
Benjamin Franklin, by Lindsay Swift. 



THE WESTMINSTER BIOG- 
RAPHIES. 



The Westminster Biographies are uniform in plan 
size, and general make-up with the Beacon Biographies, 
the point of important difference lying in the fact that 
they deal with the lives of eminent Englishmen instead 
of eminent Americans. They are bound in limp red cloth, 
are gilt- topped, and have a cover design and a vignette title- 
page by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Like the Beacon 
Biographies, each volume has a frontispiece portrait, a 
photogravure, a calendar of dates, and a bibliography for 
further reading. 

The following volumes are issued: — 

Robert Browning, by Arthur Waugh. 

Daniel Defoe, by Wilfred Whitten. 

Adam Duncan (Lord Camperdown), by H. W. Wilson. 

George Eliot, by Clara Thomson. 

Cardinal Newman, by A. R. Waller. 

John Wesley, by Frank Banfield. 

Many others are in preparation. 



SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers, 
Pierce Building, Copley Square, Boston. 



NOV 29 1901 

1 COPY DEL. TO CAT. OIV. 
NOV. 30 1901 



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